Experiencing Slippage Into the Future
by Shamera
Summary: cyberpunk!AU. Arthur was looking for a sister who didn't exist. Instead, he found the childhood friend he never met. light A/M
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Experiencing Slippage Into the Future  
**Characters/Pairings:** light Arthur/Merlin  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** Angst, messing with memories, time dilation, abstract confusion, exposition  
**Spoilers:** ...none, really. AU and all.  
**Summary:** cyberpunk!AU. Arthur was looking for a sister who didn't exist. Instead, he found the childhood friend he never met.  
**AN:** First and foremost the great round of applause to **greenclove** for not only the art and idea for this story, but putting up with my possibly incoherent messages. XD And **staubundsterne** for beta'ing even though she had several deadlines coming up as well! Then the organisers of **merlinreversebb**, and _everyone_ who had to put up with my craziness. I must have the most fantastic friends who just bring me food as I type. XD  
This entire story was inspired and written for THIS IMAGE because is it not just amazing? Guys, guys, if you like this story or the concept or anything about it, you really have **greenclove** to thank! =^^=

.

.

.

.

.

_Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen. She had lost her mother and father long ago, but had a loving husband and a doting best friend and so many people who would have done anything for her smile. She was the fairest in all the lands, and possibly one of the most brilliant as well. She and her friend came up with ideas that would make the world a better place, and her husband spared no expense in order to make all her great ideas reality. Her people adored her, and she had everything a person could possibly want or wish for._

_Everything but a child._

_So one day her best friend, in attempts to give her the one thing she wanted, spoke with her husband._

_Magic, she said. Magic would give her the child she wanted. I will make this happen. I will learn what it takes, and I will cast this spell._

_What the spell took was the best friend, who volunteered to be the subject of an experiment that took her magical gifts and turned them into something else. But the magic was treacherous. While the best friend remained in stasis for her gifts to be used, it weakened the queen so that when the child came, it was too much for her._

_The king, in his grief, punished the friend for suggesting such a procedure, destroying everything about her— but not before promising that he would also search for and destroy other people who might have the power to learn that spell. It will be wiped from existence._

_And so it was._

.

.

.

After the nightmares (and there were always nightmares now, almost every night), Arthur would gather Merlin's shaky limbs to him in an embrace that he always imagined his mother would provide when he desperately needed comfort. The first several times had been awkward, with him not knowing what to do and the embrace meant for a child rather than someone with Merlin's height. It was hard to tuck Merlin's head under his chin and cradle flailing limbs without panicking him more.

Arthur would place him in the V of his legs and wrap both arms around Merlin's skinny torso, attempting to fight and hold down bony elbows and weak hands, feeling the shift of muscle in Merlin's back and the knobby outline of his spine. He'd make hushing noises as the other whimpered and slowly clawed his way out of his own head.

_It gets worse._Arthur would write, hoping that Morgana would get his messages. He never got a response, but at this stage, he didn't expect one. Morgause would have her hands full with his sister just as Arthur busied himself over Merlin.

Sometimes, on better days, he and Merlin would stroll through streets and greet familiar strangers who stopped and laughed with them, sharing a memory of the past and asking about each others' lives. Those were the best and worst days for Arthur, seeing the possibilities of all that could be and the blatant lie he had to deal with every day. He never knew any of the strangers who stopped and talked with them, and understood that they didn't know him, either.

Merlin's smiles on those days are bright, hands animated as he recalls events that never happened, memories that never formed.

—

"They're looking for you." Gwaine admitted as he handed Arthur the package he had been sent to deliver. "Your father is furious."

Arthur accepted the package, fingers tightening on the heaviness of the small box and knowing that it was filled with delicate equipment; items that would keep him one step ahead of everyone else, one step ahead of the faceless government officials sent to clean up messes. One step ahead of Mordred.

"You don't have to continue with us." Arthur told him. Gwaine was all about protesting and sticking up for the underdog, for fighting for what's right and being all stupidly noble even if the odds were a thousand to one— a million to one, against him. But this wasn't a noble quest, and it wasn't even _good_. Things were far too morally ambiguous to risk life and limb over. As far as they could discern, the government was actually doing _the right thing _this time. And Arthur had to stand against them.

"Never one to bend over for Big Brother, mate," Gwaine said, the enthusiasm in his voice never reaching his eyes. "Besides, Merlin's my friend."

Gwaine had been the one to hand Merlin's card over to Arthur in the first place. _Never a better tracker,_ he had said that very first time they had met. _If anyone can find your sister, he can._ Arthur had been grasping for straws back then, having exhausted his resources in locating Morgana. He had spent eight months trying to find her again, knowing somehow that she needed his help, especially when the lines he had called to reach her claimed that she had never been to the area, and that Morgana Pendragon did not exist.

One day, he had been in regular correspondence with her, and the next day she had disappeared— disappeared with no trace of anyone even knowing who she was, and no matter what Arthur did, no trace of Morgana had been found again no matter how many strings he pulled and how much money he threw at all the right people.

"How is he?" Gwaine asked when Arthur didn't respond. "How's he doing?"

"He's fine." Arthur answered, knowing well enough that _fine_ covered a whole variety of responses, all of them false unless Gwaine automatically translated 'fine' with 'really not fine at all.' Arthur stuffed the package into his bag, shifting around groceries to cover any evidence of electronics. Gwaine didn't pry further than that, and Arthur took his leave, hesitating only a moment to remind him, "Hey, if you hear from Morgana..."

"You'll be the first to know." Gwaine tapped his up-link. "You remember my ringtone, right?"

"Yeah."

It was the same phrase they had exchanged in parting for the past three weeks.

—

The first time Arthur met Merlin, he had not been impressed.

"It's _you._" He drawled, careful to sound unimpressed despite his surprise.

It had been far too long since he had last seen Merlin, years and years since they had been children and Merlin had been trapped in a tree trying to rescue a cat but found himself clinging to the unhappy and yowling feline as a dog that had to had to have been his own height and twice as heavy as him growled at the base of the tree.

Back then, Arthur had been the child staring out his school window in boredom, having stayed later due to extra lessons offered by his teachers, tapping unhurriedly with his stylus in attempts to convey just how bored he was with his instructors.

He had perked up at the image of a boy in a tree (the only tree in the yard, the only one within the otherwise barren concrete block really), stretching his neck with narrowed eyes when he saw the dog barking, teeth bared. It had taken him a whole two minutes to leave his classroom and head down in attempts of rescuing the little boy in the tree (ignoring the startled shouts of his teachers), where he had pulled his tablets and data carriers into his bag before heading outside without the slightest plan as to how he was supposed to overcome a dog that was larger than himself.

Arthur didn't quite remember how he fended the dog off, but he thought he did it quite admirably before he attempted to coax the boy from the tree.

Surprisingly, the boy had been ill receptive to his rescue.

"I could have done it myself!" The little black-haired boy had protested, still holding on to the squirming cat even as he attempted to carefully navigate branches with his scuffed sneakers, nearly slipping more than once and being tangled up in leaves as his shirt mercifully got caught and held him before he could fall entirely.

"No, you couldn't!" A young Arthur had retorted, more displeased than he thought he would be that the boy wasn't starry-eyed at the rescue. That was how things were supposed to happen, weren't they? "What were you going to do, throw leaves at that dog and then waited until he ate you?"

"Of course not!" The boy had to use an arm to hold on to the last branch as he tried to find the ground with his feet, still several feet in the air. The cat gave a displeased yowl and flicked its tail furiously, although it was smart enough to not struggle too hard as of yet. "But I would have taken care of it!"

It took several moments for Arthur's irritation at not being properly greeted like the heroic knight he was to disappear. Merlin wiggled, trying to get down from the tree. After a huff, Arthur reached up for the other boy's foot. "Uh-huh. Stop _moving_, I've got you."

"No, you haven't!"

The two boys struggled not to fall, and eventually it was the cat who decided it had enough and scratched at the boy's arms before jumping away as the dark haired boy cried out and lost his grip, ending up falling directly on Arthur.

There had been protests and cut off accusations that ended in tears and a trip to the school nurse and bandages before the boy had shyly revealed that his name was Merlin and _please don't tell my mum about this!_

That had been his first encounter with the strange child called Merlin, whom Arthur soon learned liked denying things far too much. He also thought that Merlin was ridiculously nice... to animals. Nice to the point of being stupid. They didn't go to the same school, didn't like the same things, and didn't agree on... well, anything. He didn't know why he kept looking for the other boy those few weeks, but he had and Merlin was always in the same small park with the tree he had first seen him at.

"How come you're outside, anyway?" Arthur had asked Merlin one day as they both sat under the shade of the lone tree, sharing a chocolate bar. The feeling of dirt and bark under his clothes was still a new one, especially since most children stayed indoors or at the very least met for play-dates in enclosed buildings. Outdoor parks were becoming few and far in-between, rusted and run over with wild grass and weeds.

"How come _you're_ outside?" Merlin shot back around a mouthful of chocolate, and yelped as Arthur leaned over to tug on his hair in retaliation for his cheek.

"I'm out here because of an idiot." Because Merlin was _interesting_, which was more than could be said for his classmates, anyway. He nudged the extra sandwich he had demanded from his bewildered cook that morning toward the younger boy. Merlin looked far too small, anyway, even for his age ("I'm six! _Six!_ 'Course I'm small_er_, but I'm not _small_!"), like the kids Arthur had seen around his school who got bullied by the upper years. "One who can't keep out of trouble."

"You shouldn't have such a low opinion of yourself!" Merlin responded cheerfully, grabbing at the sandwich eagerly. He had a smudge of chocolate around his lips and the lingering lisp of a child who hadn't learnt to form his words completely yet, with still chubby fingers that reached into Arthur's lunchbox.

"I'm not the idiot— you're the idiot." It was a kind of argument that Arthur had grown out of the year previous, but it was all too easy to be pulled back into the juvenile retorts. He batted the smaller boy's hands away when it reached too close to the cookies, though. "You were the one in a tree with a cat!"

Merlin shrugged. "She wouldn't come down!"

Arthur thought for a moment. "Is she your cat?"

The dark haired boy just shook his head, though. "Nope. Just a kitty."

Arthur balked. "She wasn't even yours? But why would you do that?" Wild cats were dangerous! They could scratch and bite and his teachers had always told him to stay away from animals he didn't know. "She could have had fleas!"

Merlin just took a moment to munch on another mouthful of jelly sandwich. "Sh' whas stuck! An' dere whas a dawg."

Disgusted, Arthur had reached over to cover Merlin's mouth and that just turned into a mild scuffle as Merlin flailed and protested and ended up falling over Arthur when he tried to push him off.

The first few weeks had been repeats of that.

"_You,_" Arthur accused through thinned lips, twenty years after their first completely unorthodox meeting. Merlin had audacity to not recognize him at first before a wide grin spread across his face (so much thinner, having lost all his baby fat and rounded cheeks and even that perpetual smudge of chocolate from all the candy that Arthur used to hand off to him), blue eyes now hidden behind a pair of black rimmed glasses and dressed... just as messily as he had been as a child.

Except he was taller. Taller than Arthur, even, and thin to the point of looking frail and slightly gaunt. His dark hair was shorter (too short to pull now if Arthur wanted his attention, not that he would ever do that to someone else. They weren't kids anymore, after all), and his eyes were not quite so trusting as they had been years ago but still as blue as ever. With the shorter hair, his ears stood out awkwardly just to emphasize that long gawky look about him that couldn't be covered under his layers of colourful jumpers and coats, even with the scarf and gloves.

He had the nerve to shove a gloved finger at Arthur's face, far too close to have heard of personal space, and not pulling back even as Arthur leaned back uncomfortably. Merlin grinned widely as if no time had passed at all since they last met. "You're Arthur!"

_Still the same._ He wasn't sure if that thought was fond or exasperated, or even disparaging. When Gwaine had mentioned knowing someone who would be able to find the tech that Arthur needed... he had not imagined that someone to be _Merlin_ of all people.

But he wasn't eight anymore, and the situation was much more serious than a trapped cat and chocolates over lunch. And from what he knew of Merlin...

"There must be a mistake." Arthur pushed himself back, frowning. He couldn't associate the image of the plump cheeked child with the man here in front of him (_A techmage,_ Gwaine had confided under his breath even as the man pulled up his collar to hide the shape of his words against anyone who might be watching. _And the best one I know._).

Merlin didn't _look_ like a techmage. Arthur had seen more than the average person in his lifetime because of his father's job, and every one of them looked almost stereotypically frightening with metal protrusions in their skulls. It was hard to disagree with the average consensus that techmages weren't human when they looked like that and could do terrible things to a person or an entire country. Each of them he had seen on trial had been condemned of anything ranging from theft of government codes to mind-wipes; murders.

Techmages altered the natural chemistry of their brains and added hardware to their grey matter to integrate themselves with the Network in a way that went far past augmented reality. Information overflow. They had holes in their head and gear in their thoughts, whirring and changing things. The general consensus was that they weren't _human_ anymore, lost in the flow of information of the world around them. Able to change facts, change digits, change a person's perspective and invade their minds if they were good enough. Techmages were dangerous.

And Merlin, Gwaine had assured Arthur, was _very_ good.

It was that fact that prevented Arthur from leaving.

That and the heavy fact that he had exhausted every other option.

"Why, because I don't look like you thought I would?" Merlin was flitting around him, the same curious expression that hadn't changed since childhood. "Wow, you've gotten _old_, Arthur."

"It's been _twenty years_, Merlin!"

"Has it?" The curious tone didn't dissipate even as Merlin finally seemed to get a hold of himself, and Arthur had to remind himself that he had learned how to control his previously explosive temper in his teenage years, damn it. It didn't help in the slightest that Merlin still seemed able to invoke his irritation and exasperation from his mere presence.

"You disappeared."

All of a sudden, it didn't feel like twenty years at all. He remembered with startling clarity how hurt he had felt as a child when Merlin stopped showing up for their lunches, when that little park had been cleared away to create another entrance to the underground, and when that tree was cut down.

Merlin's expression closed off, unnatural despite how Arthur had barely known him as an adult for mere moments. "I got moved."

_Moved_. It sounded so simple. But Arthur wasn't here to demand excuses, or even meet with childhood acquaintances. He was on a mission.

He pursed his lips and dug into the pockets of his coat, throwing an opened tracker case onto the table next to him, the case cracked with its shiny electronics exposed. It was a simple piece that he had gotten off a shifty repair technician, the casing a burnished metal plate with rough bumps and the size of his fist, misshapen and odd, and the inside filled with scrambled wires and softly blinking lights, a warm whirring to show it was doing... something. Something that Arthur wasn't too sure about, anyway.

As startling as it had been to find Merlin, it was nothing more than a distraction. "Moved. Right. It doesn't matter. Prove that you can do what I came for."

Merlin drew back, expression hurt for a moment before he smoothed it over, scowling. Arthur tried not to feel guilty over it. They had fallen out for twenty years, and in all rights, they shouldn't even _remember_each other seeing how long ago they had known each other and for the short amount of time.

"Fine." He snapped. "What do you want?"

For all accounts, they were strangers who happened to know each other from childhood. But strangers never the less.

"I was told that you were discreet."

"If it was Gwaine telling you this, then you should already know that. If he told you where I am, he would have told you what I am."

Arthur's expression grew even darker, if that was possible. He had made it a point to never associate with techmages in his life. "Yes. And that's why I need reassure than you will be _discrete_."

"Who in their right mind would listen to me? _What do you want?_"

They stared each other down for several moments, neither willing to back down.

"You know what," Merlin finally said, words slow. "You can get the hell out. Tell Gwaine to forget about it. You already know about me, and you won't trust me with whatever it is that you're trying to do? No. It doesn't matter. You can walk out; don't even try to turn me in because you won't find me again."

_Fine._It was on the tip of his tongue, to walk out and away from this chance meeting because Arthur knew damned better than to associate with techmages. He had been taught his entire life about how dangerous they were, how terrible and distorted. They were plagues upon mankind, people who twisted the technology that was meant to help people into something that could hurt.

He wasn't about to associate with a techmage, even if it was someone he had once known. Once. A very long time ago.

He wasn't.

Except he had grasped the last of his contacts, and come up empty. Except that he knew this was his last chance because no techmage would never willingly help him anyway, being the son of Uther Pendragon. And he was at the end of his wits; nothing had worked. And if it ever came down to how important it was associating with techmages and ruining his reputation, and finding Morgana again...

_Morgana._

The thought of his sister made him tense and made him freeze and prevented him from leaving the shabby building, the small room he had found himself walking into in order to look for a techmage of all people.

Merlin's glare was still as heated as ever.

Arthur bristled. No. He wasn't going to rise to the bait.

"If you're not going to help, then I'll find someone else." He bluffed. There was no way that he was going to give in to the other man, but it was true that no one else would help him anymore.

He turned on his heel, ready to pick up the device he had thrown down and leave.

"No one would help such a prat!"

It was _irritating!_No one had spoken like that to him before, especially knowing his name and who he was. Uther Pendragon had been one of the original group who advanced the world tech to the level of augmented reality. He had been one of the few who had invested in the Network with fingers in every pot there was in this business.

Arthur may have had no head for coding, but he had inherited that easy understanding of business and in his years after university had clawed his way up to the top through his own company, having to start at the very bottom because Uther refused to allow even his son a shortcut.

Arthur gritted his teeth, and turned his head back. "You can't speak to me like that."

"Sir Prat, then. Lord Prat?"

If anything, Merlin sounded amused. It was unbelievable.

"I could have you arrested just for being who you are." Arthur snapped.

"And I could discredit everything you say about me before the police arrive." Merlin said with a shrug. "It would probably ruin your reputation, too, so I wouldn't be too keen to test that out if I were you."

"No one can break into the records like that."

"I can." Merlin didn't even sound like he was boasting, just stating a fact. "And within ninety seconds that the police take to respond."

If there was anything Arthur couldn't resist, it was a challenge. He had his phone out before Merlin finished the sentence, more than willing to test that theory out. If Merlin was as good as he said he was, then he would be able to find Morgana if there was a hint of her anywhere at all.

Before he could pull up the screen for emergency calls, an error message flashed in front of his eyes. He looked up incredulously at Merlin's grin.

"Of I could, you know, prevent you from making that call at all."

He had the audacity to turn his back to Arthur and pull out a seat, plopping down in a undignified manner and leaning his chin on his arms against the back of the chair. "Well? Do I pass?"

Arthur hadn't even seen him pull up an interface, and he had no tablet before him. He had been hacked in moments, and Merlin donned an innocent expression.

He snapped his phone shut, half torn between disgruntled and begrudging respect. "You pass."

With that, Arthur reached into his coat and pulled out his tablet, the screen switching on at his touch even as he tossed the thin screen on the table in front of Merlin.

"There's someone I need you to find. You'll be recompensed if you can do it."

—

"You don't have an up-link."

"Don't be stupid; everyone has an up-link." Merlin didn't even bother to look up from where he hunched over Arthur's tablet, pen a constant staccato against the surface. Arthur thought he sounded as distracted and childish as ever. His other hand hovered over the glowing screen, typing across an invisible screen that glowed in his eyes. "I can't be who I am without one."

No, Arthur mused, a hand still tense on the door. Techmages usually had more than one up-link on at all times, transferring files and information even while they slept. But the up-links were visible on their skin: a node across their temple, a protrusion at the base of their skull. Sometimes an entire eye replaced by bionics to keep as an external hard-drive.

But even without being a techmage, everyone had one up-link. A simple one that rested behind one ear, nearly invisible and not very powerful. Just enough to connect to the Network for purposes of information gathering and communications as well as a GPS to guide the way. Enough that no child would ever be lost, and no student could claim not to have what they needed to do their work while no adults were allowed to slack.

Well, everyone except those who couldn't afford it.

But Merlin's ears were large and his hair short, and even having been reunited with him for a day, Arthur knew that Merlin had a penchant for hats. Hats and headphones and anything that would cover said ears, except he wasn't wearing any of that right now and Arthur could see the smooth skin behind his ears.

He reached to pull on one of those ears, prompting Merlin to drop the tablet as his hands went up automatically to protect said appendages.

It was maddening how comfortable Arthur felt with Merlin, despite even knowing what he was or even as he knew; he knew there was no trusting techmages. He understood that he didn't really know anything about Merlin at all. A few weeks back in primary school should have counted for nothing.

"What the hell!" Merlin exclaimed as the tablet clattered to the ground.

Arthur yanked harder, suddenly furious. He had fretted far too long about asking Gwaine, about finding a techmage to continue his search for Morgana, and this— Merlin didn't even have up-links! He _needed _someone who could manipulate the Network the way normal users could not, not someone without even the barest up-link (and it was funny, but he couldn't remember if Merlin had an up-link as a child).

"How can you be a techmage?" He demanded. "You can't even— you can't even connect to the Network!"

Merlin shoved him away with surprising strength, scowling. "I'm not stupid! Why in the world would I want to have an up-link where people could see? Do you really think that techmages would have bits of metal stuck to their face in plain sight? Who could be that stupid?"

But every mage Arthur had heard about had some kind of up-link in a clearly visible area, making them look _different_ and branding them as something more than the average citizen. Techmages relied heavily on superior technology, not caring if the implantation of that technology would change their physical appearance.

"Prove it." He challenged. "Prove you're one of them."

Merlin yanked away from his grasp, a frown that looked nearly unnatural on his face. He picked up the tablet from where it had dropped, and shoved it in front of Arthur's face. "Here. Prat."

After eight months of deleted information, wiped trails, and false leads, the name looked like a dream.

_Morgana Pendragon._

—

"Who the hell _is _he?"

Not two days since meeting Merlin again, and Arthur had dragged Gwaine to a private booth in a restaurant, having flaunted his wealth for a room without any surveillance.

"Eight months." He hissed at the detective. "Eight months and not a _single_ hint of even her name— everything completely wiped from the Network, including her very _name_. No surveillance records, no videos, no photos... I've been to every single company with the most advanced tech, and they couldn't do a thing to even find her name, let alone _Morgana_. And now this bloke managed to find her records in four hours?"

It was beyond suspicious. He would have claimed forgery if it wasn't for the fact that everything Merlin managed to dig up was _true_. Her medical records (when she had broken her arm at twelve sneaking out of the house by climbing the impossibly high fence), her search history (even from the time she had tried to wipe of when she had been obsessed with that boy band), and even a message she had sent to him before her disappearance.

A message that they hadn't been able to decrypt as of yet. Merlin was still back at the apartment trying to crack through the walls of coding surrounding it.

"I told you Merlin was good." Gwaine responded with a knowing grin, pouring himself another drink. The man had requested an entire bottle of liquor at the beginning of the meal, and was slowing making his way through drink rather than food.

Arthur shuddered at the idea of techmages being _that_ good. Good enough that five companies and eight months amounted to nothing more than four hours of work. How was any Network security firm supposed to defend against them?

It was disconcerting, if not frightening. The current world was comprised of information exchange; society as they knew it _stood_ on the Network. He had always thought of techmages as a nuisance at best, a danger far away from himself at worst. A contained danger. Illegal hackers.

_Not human_ had been a description he had heard time and time again, but not one he put any real thought into.

"He could topple governments."

"If he really wanted to," Gwaine agreed glibly. "Probably in hours. On a whim."

_Jesus._Arthur rubbed at his temple, resting his elbows on the table in a rare moment of appalling manners. His food was untouched on the table.

"Not that Merlin would do anything like that." Gwaine continued, as if he hadn't shattered Arthur's worldly beliefs with his last statement. "He's just that nice bloke, you know? The _nice_ one. You know, first time I met Merlin he was standing up to this burly toff harassing an elderly lady? Guy must have been three times the size of Merlin, but there he was looking shocked as anything while Merlin gave him a dressing down on _manners_ and how he was supposed to respect the elderly as well as the female sex.

"I pulled him out of harm's way, I did. He wouldn't have survived a single blow from that toff, and it looked like the man was just about to come to his senses and land a good one."

"Nice," Arthur tasted the word in his mouth, and found that he didn't like it. "Makes him all the more dangerous."

Gwaine shook a finger at Arthur, other hand clutching his drink. "He's as harmless as a bunny!"

Arthur begged to differ. _Nice_ people were perhaps the most dangerous of them all, especially when presented with power. If they were genuinely caring, then those people would destroy the world in their ill-advised attempts to improve things; not to mention all the others who could take advantage of such niceness, who could prey on that naivete.

"Besides," Gwaine continued. "Merlin keeps to himself. Doesn't like getting involved in anything. I'm the one who asked him to look into your sister's case for you. He owed me one."

"So he'd hack into secured files because he owed you one?"

It was the tone that finally got to Gwaine, getting the other man to lower his drink as his brow went up in surprise at the hostility Arthur was showing.

"No," He explained, his words slow just so they'd get into Arthur's head. "He did that because I told him your sister was missing, and that you've been searching for her for ages and was worried about her safety."

Arthur scowled.

"Look, Arthur. You're the one who nearly gave up because even your father was denying Morgana's existence. You thought you were going crazy because every trace of her life just disappeared and you couldn't find hide nor hair of it. Remember? I wasn't going to let you drive yourself insane just because your father's a piece of—"

Gwaine cut off at Arthur's harsh look.

"You know what I mean, mate."

It was all the more disconcerting knowing that the person who could possibly topple the work of thousands of people was _Merlin_. It didn't match with his memories of the small, skinny child covered in light scratches from playing outdoors.

"You gave your word that you wouldn't turn him in." Gwaine reminded him.

"_If _he found Morgana."

"And he did." Gwaine gave a meaningful pause. "He found her so fast that you came to me because it unnerved you."

Arthur didn't bother to deny it. "It doesn't unnerve you?"

The other man shrugged. "Maybe it would, if I didn't know Merlin like I do. But you want to know what I like best about Merlin? It's not just that he does things to help people, or that he has power— it's that he does everything and doesn't expect any praise for it." With that, Gwaine downed his drink, smacking his lips after the liquor disappeared down his throat. "That's how you know when they don't have ulterior motives."

Arthur just grunted at that, unimpressed.

The server came back then, setting down the desert plates with a smile, even though Arthur hadn't managed to touch his food as of yet. His gut was churning with uncertainty.

Gwaine, however, was entirely charming as he thanked her and complimented her on both her quick service and eyes, making the girl blush brightly before she walked away, this time with a sway in her steps.

"Just why did you come crying to me?" Gwaine asked as he picked up a fork.

"I didn't." Arthur denied with a scowl. He didn't exactly cry to _anyone_, and the mere insinuation was insulting. "I needed a second opinion. I should have know you would be biased."

"I'm the one who introduced you to Merlin, mate. And really, that's a testament of my faith in you. I don't give just anyone Merlin's contact, you know."

_He's important to me_ was heavily laced into the statement.

"Anyway," Gwaine said. He proved once again that his dining etiquette certainly left more to be desired by stuffing a large forkful of the thick slab of cheesecake and waved it in Arthur's face. "How long have I know you? Three years? So at least trust _me_ when I say that you should trust Merlin. He knows what he's doing— well, at least he likes making it look like he knows what he's doing. He's probably floundering as much as we all are, but he's good at making up solutions as he goes. And things always work out around him; must be some kind of talent."

Arthur left the meal feeling just as bewildered as he did when he had called Gwaine up.

—

_Find me._

Merlin managed to turn away politely as Arthur drew in a breath, accepting the last message from Morgana that the techmage had been able to dig up.

—

After that, there were hints and messages from Morgana everywhere. Or it felt like everywhere.

Merlin stayed quiet about the issue, sensing that Arthur's hackles were raised as the trail of virtual breadcrumbs continued, hidden everywhere like a sort of alternate reality game that Arthur had once upon a time found himself fascinated by.

When the subject hit this close to home, though, it didn't seem as funny. Hidden codes in places he frequented, in old messages, planted through his life: it was almost frightening. It meant that someone had the power to insert these things, and it was someone who knew him well.

It was the second day since Merlin had started working on finding Morgana, and he had already covered over half a dozen messages meant for Arthur that he had managed to overlook.

It was almost like Morgana knew that Arthur would eventually turn to a techmage to find those messages.

It became more disturbing when Merlin admitted that there was a new message since he managed to uncover the first traces of Morgana's trail.

_Stay there. I'll find you._

"What does that mean?" Arthur had asked, frustrated.

"What it says?" Merlin said. "Arthur, these messages... there aren't many people out there who can plant them. Your sister either has a techmage throwing these things out for her... or she _is_ one."

"I know my sister." Arthur snapped at him. "And if there's one thing she's not, she's not a _techmage_."

Because Morgana would never be able to stand the implants and extra up-links. Her vanity came first, however much she denied it.

However, looking at Merlin and his lack of metal aberrations, Arthur had to wonder if Morgana had somehow also managed to find a way to gain the extra power over the Network without sacrificing her cover.

Or not. Or else she wouldn't be hiding, after all.

It was one of the things that really struck Arthur after his chat with Gwaine: if there was nothing wrong with Morgana, if she wasn't hurt in any way, then why had she disappeared? Not many people could threaten the Pendragon family with the amount of power that Uther held over the Network and the world in general. Morgana was family, and no matter how cruel threads on the Network whispered Uther's mind was, one thing that was upheld was _family_. Family was important. Family came first.

That was one of the reasons Arthur had been so furious when Uther denied ever having a daughter.

"Then she's got someone who can erase her— her entire _existence_. I don't know if you know this, but people can't do that, Arthur. A person's virtual footprint is just about impossible to erase. There's always a hint somewhere— she was wiped clean."

"Not clean enough to hide from you." Arthur said, and then thought, _what about you? I tried searching for you as well as a child and couldn't find a trace of you._Back then, he had thought it was because he was just a child, but with the way Merlin was speaking, maybe it was something else.

Merlin didn't rise to the bait, instead handing his tablet over to Arthur.

"One more thing. This is... she's involved in something dangerous. This was pretty highly classified."

_Category-10_, it said at the top of the page.

The rest of it was in code, in a script that Arthur didn't recognize.

"What does this have to do with her?"

"It has her name attached to it."

Arthur turned his attention from the tablet to Merlin. "And? You can't decode this?"

Merlin's expression looked uncertain. "It's not that."

"Then what? Am I not paying you enough to break into government archives and top-secret files?"

At that, the thin man huffed. "You're not paying me to hack into government files at all! You just said find your sister!"

"And you're saying this _doesn't _involve finding her?" Arthur raised a brow in question.

If anything, Merlin looked uncomfortable. "Look, it's— this file doesn't look safe, alright."

"So you _are_ saying you can't decode it."

"I'm saying I don't want to!" Merlin didn't do anything so dramatic as throw his arms up in frustration, but it was a close thing. "I have a bad feeling about it, alright? This—" He gestured to the tablet. "It looks like one giant trap. It's got trap written all over it. Well, not literally, but the set-up and the secrets and password contingency loops... I managed to _get _to file. Making sense of it would probably alert every warning bell on the Network."

"So you downloaded this?" Arthur asked slowly.

"Yes!"

Merlin nodded furiously as Arthur gave the tablet another glance.

"And your files are secure, right?"

"What do you take me for? Of course they are! Do you know how much trouble I'd be in if I left any trace of a trail for the information you have me dig up?"

Arthur handed the tablet back. "Then decode it. It's downloaded and secure, how is anyone supposed to know if you managed to make sense of it?"

"That's not— that's not—" Merlin stumbled over his own words. Arthur just stood from where he had been sitting, and patted the other man condescendingly on the shoulder.

"I'll expect to see it by the time I get back from take-out, then. How's fish and chips for you?"

—

Morgause was the most straightforward woman Arthur had ever had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to meet.

For all of Merlin's doubts about the search for Morgana, Arthur had been optimistic about it. He just wanted to find his sister and then get back to his_ life_. He had already taken three days off work and knew that the paperwork would only pile up higher the more he put it off. Not to mention Guinevere kept leaving him messages that made him feel guilty just looking at it.

(It said something that he could read those messages in his head and they would contain her voice, scolding him for running off.)

He had paid those messages no mind until the day he had been yanked right out of a crowded street into a shadowed alleyway, his shoulder feeling the blunt force keenly.

"Arthur Pendragon."

She was small and blonde, wearing boyish clothing and thick kohl eyeliner that looked too dark on her face and was too sharp a contrast against like blonde brows and curls that framed her face.

Had it not been for the tone of voice and manner in which she was standing, Arthur would have given her an appreciative look. As such, his sense of preservation kicked in enough to lean away from her and frown, yanking his arm away from her.

"My name is Morgause." She said before Arthur could say anything. "I'm here because we have a common interest: Morgana."

She led him to a door several blocks away with a heavily muscled man guarding the entrance who opened the door for her and Arthur when they approached. Inside looked the back room of a bar, bright but hazy with smoke. The smoke was explained when she took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one up expertly. Arthur tried not to make a face, unused to the smell knowing that most of the country had managed to wean away from the habit of smoking.

"Are you the one planting the messages for her?" He demanded the moment they sat down, bypassing introductions and common courtesy.

She blew smoke into his face. "No."

Arthur thought about emergency calls and how quickly Merlin managed to hack his.

"What do you know about my sister?"

Morgause took her time answering, flicking the end of her cigarette at the ashtray built into the centre of the table. "I know that she's my sister."

"That's not possible."

"Isn't it?" Morgause took another whiff, dark eyes glittering as she looked over Arthur carefully. "I thought by now you'd have the file."

It was far too cryptic for Arthur. "What file?"

"The one about Category-10s."

The file. _That _file. Merlin had refused to decode it, even when Arthur had thrown the tablet at his head.

"I got it." Arthur responded slowly, feeling as if the conversation was a sort of power play. He was rather good at those, but not at keeping secrets. He was good at motivating his employees to work harder, but not at extracting information.

"But you haven't read it." Morgause quirked her lips into a smile, looking predatory. "You don't know what they are yet."

"They?"

"Them. Five of them. My sister's one of them."

"You mean Morgana." Arthur's face shuttered as he leaned over the table, disregarding the smoke. "What does she have to do with that file?"

Morgause extinguished the dregs of her cigarette in the tray.

"Not yet. You have to read it yourself. Do so and in three days' time, I'll take you to Morgana."

"You have her. What have you done to her?"

The threat in his tone only made her laugh.

"Don't worry, Pendragon. I'm the one keeping her safe. More than you can."

She nodded behind him, and Arthur saw the man who had been guarding the door standing behind him intently. He was escorted away from the building rather quickly after that, all in shadows until he ended up back on the main street with the same crowd he had been taken from, frustrated and tense from the shroud of secrecy that he had never before been exposed to.

That had been his first meeting with Morgause.

—

The second time, Merlin had insisted on coming along with him.

"I just need you to decode that file, _Mer_lin," Arthur had drawled, wondering if it was too much if he strapped several knives on his person. Just in case. Guns might have been overboard, but he didn't think it was a bad decision to take something to defend himself with in case something went... south, per say.

Merlin had been unnaturally quiet (and how was it that Arthur could tell that after only knowing Merlin for the past four days?), before asking, "Can't you just bring the file to her?"

"I thought you didn't want to expose government secrets."

"No, I didn't want them to track us."

Arthur scowled. That excuse hadn't worked with him the first time, and there was no way it was going to work now. "How are they supposed to track you on a closed network? You have the file secured, not to mention _you already have the file_and they didn't even notice. How will they figure out that you've decoded it?"

Merlin was quiet, pacing around the room as Arthur threw on his scarf, pulling it tightly (and fashionably) around his neck and stuffing the ends into his coat. The weather was getting cold, and he planned on being back at work soon where the heaters made the air bearable rather than feeling like icicles against your skin.

It was strange. Four days of putting up with Merlin at all times because Arthur had insisted on keeping an eye on the other man (purely because he wanted to be the absolute first to know should new information come up, and that had come up in abundance the first two days) and he had gotten used to his presence around.

"Don't go," Merlin ended up pleading. "Maybe Morgause is keeping your sister safe. Don't get involved. You know she's alive and well now. Go back to your old life."

And that was the thing: ever since Merlin had found that file, he had been acting strange. Stranger and stranger. Arthur's eyes narrowed.

"You _have_ decoded it!" He accused. "And you're just not letting me see it."

"What? No. I haven't! I just," And this was where the other man fidgeted, looking nervous and anxious and for some reason, guilty. "I just think, I know it's silly but, I just feel like I don't want to know what it says. Like it's going to say something horrible and I won't be able to take back the information once I read it. Like I should never read it."

His voice was quiet by the end of it, although he never stopped pacing, looking so very anxious.

Arthur took half a moment to pause what he was doing to stare incredulously at Merlin, wondering if that should be taken seriously or not before deciding that it was best for Merlin to man up. "Don't be such a girl, Merlin. You're the—" He made a waving gesture with his hand before finally relenting to speak the word at Merlin's confused look, "techmage, right? Knowledge is power and all that. It could be something you need to know for later.

"It _is_ be something _I_ need to know, so I need you to decode it. Don't read it if you like."

"And how am I supposed to work on it without reading it?" Merlin sounded mildly irritated now. "I don't have a _program _that does this, you know. I actually have to work on it myself."

"Then figure out a way." And Arthur was out the door. "But I need it by tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, Merlin!"

Except Merlin continued to refuse even the next day and Arthur finally had to wrestle the other man down in a fit of exasperation until Merlin finally gave up and agreed to work on it ("Under extreme duress!") and Arthur left him alone for a few minutes to leave Lancelot a message telling him and Guinevere that he was fine and that he might be back at work in a few days.

When he once again glanced back into the room and Merlin looked far too still to actually be working, eyes wide and reflected golden, the sight was so familiar to him that it made Arthur's breath catch for a moment.

Techmages did that, he knew in a strictly textbook sense. Their eyes reflected the gold of the Network, of their up-links that were more advanced than an average person's. That was the thing about augmented reality; there was no physical sign of keyboards and messages and flashing signs because it only showed in a person's head, but with techmages, their connection was so strong that it would show in their eyes.

Arthur had never really paid attention to the biology of it, but he had never really seen it before. Uther had never allowed Arthur close enough to a techmage out of fear for his child, so while he had _known_, it wasn't a sight he had ever really experienced up close and in person.

Except he _had_ in the past several days with Merlin, staying in the other man's small flat for most of the day before he left for home late at night (or lately, not at all. He just commandeered the couch for the evening and brought a change of clothes. It wasn't as if he couldn't conduct his business from wherever). This had actually been one of the rare times Merlin had consented to work at Arthur's posher flat, mostly due to Arthur's bribes of food.

Merlin was never quite this still.

"Hey," Arthur spoke from the edge of the room, letting go of the connection he had held to his messages. "You alright?"

Merlin looked up and it looked like he was staring at a stranger.

It was unnerving, and that irked Arthur something strange.

"What?" He demanded, suddenly wondering if maybe Merlin had been right to _not_ want to decode the file.

It took a while, but Merlin finally shook his head. He shut off his tablet and turned it over on the table.

"You shouldn't read it." He finally said, voice hollow. "You shouldn't."

Then he stood up and left the room, and Arthur was torn between following and reaching for the tablet in the middle of the room.

In the end, he stepped out of the house to meet Morgause without touching the tablet.


	2. Chapter 2

"You didn't read it."

Morgause was very clear in her disappointment, and Arthur found himself bristling.

"I assumed you would tell me what I needed to know." He snapped.

"You have the file. Morgana tells me that is is sitting on your desk."

And at this, Arthur found he had had enough. Enough with the secrecy and the hiding, because he just wanted to find his sister and then go back to his normal life where people didn't feel the need to act like some stupid novella secret agents. Techmages or no (and he still wasn't ready to believe that Morgana had out and gotten herself up-links for techmages without seeing it with his own eyes), he wanted the truth.

"And how does she know that? How do I even know you're telling the truth and not just some— some international spy pretending to have my sister?"

Morgause gave him a pointed look, lowering her cigarette. "If you had read the report, Pendragon, you would have known exactly how I know that."

It wasn't a point he wanted to argue at the moment. He hadn't read the report. He hadn't read it because of the look on Merlin's face after he had decoded it, and he hadn't even touched the tablet since then because it felt like some kind of betrayal to do so.

He raised a hand to his face, rubbing at the spot between his eyes and willed himself to calm.

"You know what it says. I'm counting on you to tell me."

Morgause gestured to the muscled man who guarded the room, and the shadowy figured nodded before he stepped out and shut the door firmly behind himself. Then she took a breath of smoke and exhaled slowly up into the air.

"You're more honourable than I gave you credit for." She said. "I didn't believe Morgana when she said that you wouldn't read it. Most men are too curious for their own good, even when that curiosity encroaches on someone else's wishes."

On Merlin's wishes.

"Well, I'm not like that." Arthur said. "So if you knew that I wouldn't read it and still wanted to talk to me, then tell me what the hell is going on."

She gave him a considering look, one that made him sit up straighter. It was a few seconds before she flicked the end of her cigarette, having come to a conclusion.

"You're in the middle of a web, Arthur Pendragon. You are sitting here in front of me because Morgana asked you to sit here in front of me. I am here talking with you because I am not one to deny her anything unreasonable."

Arthur's brow raised. "You need to speak clearly."

Morgause took another breath of smoke.

"Category-10s. It was a project started well over a quarter of a decade ago. Programs developed on the best computers the world has seen so far." She paused dramatically. "The human brain."

Arthur nodded. That wasn't unheard of. There were quite a few people who offered their minds to solving problems nowadays. It was still a radical practice and there were quite a few who lobbied against it and called it an invasion of the human brain, but it was fully consensual. The people were well paid and their minds well taken care of. It wasn't a shock.

"The first subject was a young woman named Nimueh. She had rather... unusual talents. She was the first one who displayed a sort of... power, almost. While her brain was altered, instead of going to sleep like most subjects would, she became more animated and aware.

"According to the case file, she would interact with the doctors and scientists around her and speak with them like old friends. And soon enough, they _were_ all friends."

She blew out another breath of smoke, and Arthur fought the urge to twitch his nose and cringe back.

"They almost didn't catch it. They all grew so fond of her, recalling shared memories of what brought her into their lives, all of it backed up with digital files stating she had been the godmother of one of the doctors, that she had gone to school with another. But back then, they also wrote down and printed all their information. It took a while, but they started seeing discrepancies. The old files said that she had no family. Said she went to school out of country. Said that by all rights, the first time she had met any of them had been in the laboratory.

"I suppose you could say that in most ways, she was the first techmage. Her brain retained a connection to the Network that allowed her to alter its data naturally and immerse herself in the lives of the people around her, altering even their memories until she wrote herself into their lives."

Arthur drew a sharp breath, not noticing his own actions as he leaned closer to hear more. Morgause smiled thinly.

"Their second subject was much younger. A little girl. When the scientists found out that some people, a minuscule percentage of the population, had the ability to connect to the Network effortlessly, they went out in search of those individuals. Techmages, as you know, implant multiple up-links in order to establish a connection with the Network that can not be attained by the average person."

Morgause tilted her head, flipping her short curls out of the way to reveal two metal pieces at the base of her skull, and Arthur's eyes narrowed.

_Techmage_. She was one as well.

She didn't react to his discomfort in the slightest. "Some people, however, don't need up-links. Not really. I tell you this in good faith, Arthur Pendragon, because Morgana tells me that you will not turn on us."

_Us,_she had said.

"She's my sister." To Arthur, that explained everything, but he elaborated for Morgause's sake. "Even if she chose to be a techmage, I wouldn't condemn her."

Morgause's smile widened slightly.

"Good."

She reached below the table and pulled out a thick file. Paper. The folder must have been at least two inches thick, crooked and filled with what looked like printed photographs.

"You did not read the file to spare your friend's sensibilities." Morgause said. "But in this case... you are not reading the file he decoded, are you?"

She tapped her finger on the files, using her other hand to put out her cigarette.

"Read it now."

—

Category-10.

_Subjects, _the file called them. Subjects 01, 02, 03, 04, and a recent addendum of Subject 05.

Morgause's eyes glittered gold in the light as Arthur read.

—

It took well over two hours. Two hours of staring at the photographs, the charts, the graphs, and reading through the files. Morgause waited, perfectly patient and staring carefully at his changing expressions, the entire time.

Even decoded into a language he could understand, it was hard to decipher the meaning. The files made everything sound clinical, like the subjects were nothing more than a theory rather than living people. It was filled with experiments and hypotheses, with detached statements of a subject's physical growth in recent years.

_Physical growth._ Arthur had to stop reading there and close his eyes, just concentrating on his breathing. _Children._

Subject 02 had been implanted with a growth program. A probability program that encompassed anything anyone had previous tried to create. Behind the fancy words and technical terms, Arthur could see what they were trying to do.

_A method to predict the future._

It had been unstable, but promising. The Network contained billions of messages, billions of coded string about what was happened, where people were going and what they were doing, about world changes and politics and the economy. Put that all together and a child's brain was used as a program to work out what would happen the next day, the next week, the next year.

Except that little girl had nearly gone mad with the information.

Subject 03 was another girl, younger than the previous. The photographs of the girl made her out as a scared child with wide eyes and a constantly terrified visage.

Her information had been blacked out. Pages and pages of information, the lines all blackened with the occasional word left alone but never enough to translate even a single sentences.

_Terminated,_the files said.

Subject 04 had been a young boy. They called this one Project Emrys as if there was something special about him other than the fact that he was the first boy they used so far.

The writer of the reports had been unnerved. Scared.

_Subject 04 displays extraordinary ability far beyond previous Subjects,_ the papers displayed. _Recommended termination._

Except they hadn't killed the little boy, but continued the experiments. Further experiments which were blacked out just as Subject 03 had been blacked out.

And at the very end was Subject 05.

Created for the sole purpose '_for the termination of Subject 02 and Subject 04.'_

The pictures within showed a teenage boy with with dark hair and cold blue eyes staring into the camera lens.

Still a child. All of them; children.

He couldn't believe it. It didn't even seem real, but rather something straight out of a cheesy comic book. Human experiments with children? Powers and the ability to predict the future?

But Morgause looked as serious as even when Arthur turned the last page.

_Children._

"What," He asked, working his way through his vocabulary to pick out the words. "Does this have to do with me?"

He wanted to say that he didn't believe it, that it must have been some elaborate hoax because things like that didn't _happen_, because it was like the government covering up some alien crash landing or secretly taking over the human race via their up-links. There were laws against that sort of thing. Rules. Common decency.

But he couldn't say that he didn't believe it, because Morgause certainly looked like she believed.

She drew out another cigarette and lighter, the flame surprisingly bright in the room, enough for Arthur to startle at how his eyes had adjusted to the dimness.

"Nimueh." She said. "Nimueh was recommended to the program by a friend of hers, one who was trying to help her because she couldn't seem to control her own up-link. It would send her information in her sleep, apparently, and make her forget things while she was awake. Her friend hoped that by having that part of her brain, the part connected to the Network, used as a supercomputer, then the rest of her brain would be left alone and she would finally be able to function in normal society again.

"Her friend's name was Ygraine Pendragon."

Out of everything (children and powers and government conspiracies), Arthur had not expected _that_.

Morgause took pity at his shocked expression.

"Didn't you know? Uther Pendragon was the one to fund the program, as a favour for his wife. It was supposed to help people like Nimueh, the rare point zero zero zero _zero_ one percentage of people who had troubles with their up-links, troubles that would cause them to retreat from their lives because they simply couldn't function anymore."

She leaned in close, her breath smelling of smoke carrying an undercurrent of wine.

"That was how all of this started. Then Ygraine died, and Uther blamed Nimueh. No one knows what really happened, but the program became one that would be beneficial for the _development_ of mankind rather than to help those in need.

"Things changed. And, Arthur Pendragon, you're right at the heart of it all."

"No." He shook his head. "No. No, my father wouldn't have done this. Or he would have told me. If he did, he must have had a reason. It must have been— there must have been a _purpose_. This isn't what you're saying."

Morgause leaned back again, eyes glittering as she took another breath of smoke. "I thought you would say that."

She reached for another file, hand slowly as Arthur tensed, and gave him a smirk, palms open to show that she wasn't reaching for anything dangerous. This folder was thin, with barely anything in it at all.

"Subject 02 and Subject 04." She said, and flipped open the file.

On one page was the proud and haughty expression of a young Morgana staring defiantly and wildly at the camera, and on the other side was Merlin, looking as small as Arthur remembered from when they met as children, huddled into himself.

—

"Do you know what Category-10 means?" Morgause said before he left, blowing smoke into his face. "It means that they can get into your head. They change the memories of the people they meet, until you don't know if they're real or not and your best friend may all of a sudden be replaced with them.

"Morgana may be your sister in your mind, Arthur Pendragon. But you didn't grow up with her. And Merlin may be your friend... but you certainly never met him as a child.

"You've never met either of them, really."

—

Merlin was waiting outside for him, looking tired. Looking the same as he had looked in that picture, only older.

The man Morgause had casually ordered out of the room was hovering over him protectively, taking in the tense atmosphere between the two of them with a frown.

"It's okay, Perceval." Merlin said with a strained smile. "I know Arthur."

But do you really? Arthur wanted to ask. His throat all but closed up in remembrance of the files. Of the photos.

Merlin was more than just a techmage. _Morgana _was more than just a techmage.

_They can change the memories of the people they meet._

Seeing the muscled man now (Perceval, Merlin had called him), Arthur was starting to realise the truth of that statement.

"You know him?" Arthur heard himself ask, voice deceptively calm.

Merlin nodded, a quick bob of his head. "Yeah, we were... we went to school together. Uni."

_You don't know if they're real or not._

"You never said where you went to school." Arthur remarked casually. "But you disappeared from my life twenty years ago."

"Mom moved." Merlin's eyes were sharp now, dark blue and calculating. It was something Arthur had failed to notice before, hidden under the veneer of being a clumsy, innocent fool. "And you never asked."

Thinking back, Arthur had never really made friends as a child. He had acquaintances. He had colleagues. He had never thought about it, but the little boy he had met under a tree when he was eight years old had been the closest and fondest memory he had to associate with as a friend.

_Your best friend may all of a sudden be replaced with them._

"Yeah." Arthur found himself agreeing. "Yeah, I forgot to ask. Sorry about that. Should have done so before."

Merlin opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. He looked toward Perceval, and then asked Arthur, "So did you find your sister?"

_No._Instead, he had found more questions than he had before, and answers he never wanted to know.

All he wanted to do was find his sister, drag her back kicking and screaming so that Guinevere and Lancelot and Leon wouldn't worry anymore, and then go back to his normal life.

His life was uncomplicated. Boring. Nothing exciting really happened, unless one counted business mergers and shouting at his employees. His biggest secret had been how he wanted to be a knight as a child rather than a businessman.

Arthur's life was _uneventful_.

"Yes." He said, as if that wasn't a complete lie. "I found her. So, you know, thanks. For helping me find her. That's done and over with now. I guess that's it."

And he walked away, leaving behind a confused Perceval and a strangely silent Merlin.

—

Merlin's tablet was still on his table.

—

He called Guinevere and told her that he would be going back to work the next day, that he was finally feeling better from that freak illness, yeah. He was fine. It was all settled. What about his sister? Oh, that must have been his grave illness talking, because he had been feverish and delusional.

He had Lancelot exchanged a few quiet reassurances, and then he called Leon as well because Leon had been the one to take care of business while he was gone. Leon made sure that his father wouldn't notice his absence until much later.

He had prepared that much while searching for Morgana.

Searching for _eight months_.

It was sunset by the time Arthur let his head hit the armrest of his couch, an arm covering his eyes as he refused to look at that slim tablet left on his table.

_Morgana didn't exist._

Merlin didn't exist.

His father had been right to be concerned over him when he claimed his sister had gone missing.

But then, Uther would have _known_. He would have known all about it and had let Arthur worry needlessly anyway, had let him waste away eight months of searching for a sister who never existed, whom he had not told all his secrets, and whom he hadn't argued with over whether or not they could be seen going to school together and being picked up together by the chauffeur.

Morgana probably never shouted at him when he first started dating Guinevere in sixth form, throwing shoes and pillows and books at his head because she just knew he would break her best friend's heart.

Merlin had probably never tried to steal the snacks that Arthur had arranged to pack for him when they were children, fingers still sticky with chocolate as he tried to pack on an innocent expression.

Morgana hadn't stood up for him against Uther when he wanted to study law rather than business.

(That was probably why he was a businessman right now. From his memories of Morgana, she would never have let the subject go until she got her way, and Arthur had once been _glad_ because her way usually meant his way as well unless she was fighting against him.)

What somehow hurt the most, though, was the thought that the tree he met Merlin under probably never existed either.

That was, if Morgause had been telling him the truth.

(How would she have lied about that, though? Could she have lied about that?)

Arthur opened his eyes from under his arm and turned his head toward the table.

Merlin's tablet was still there.

—

_Category-10,_read the tablet.

It went on to talk about the first subject, Nimueh, whose story was exactly like Morgause had told it.

Arthur turned the tablet over before he got to Subject 02.

And then he threw the machinery against the wall, delighting as it sparked and powered off, nearly denting his wallpaper.

—

He went back to work the next day and tried not to think about any of it. He greeted his secretary absently and escaped into his office, refusing to take messages as he tried to catch up what had happened to the company in his absence.

—

It was a furious message from Gwaine that brought him out of his stupor.

A furious and incomprehensible message littered with curses and phrases never to be repeated in polite company. It was long and creative and colourful, but broken down, quite simple.

_Whatever you did to Merlin,_ Gwaine had written in not quite those words, _fix it. Now._

There were further threats about how if he didn't, Gwaine would fix _him_.

But just that simple message brought it all crashing down on his head.

_His father condoned experiments done on children. Experiments that turned children crazy. Experiments that ended with their deaths. Their **terminations**._

That's when he brought out his vodka, downing shot after shot until his thoughts were fuzzy and everything was once again manageable. The alcohol made his thoughts fuzzy and pleasant until he found that yeah, sure, he could deal with this situation.

And then he left a message for Merlin.

_Sorry for leaving like that,_ he tried to type out, although it may have been one long slur of auto-corrects. _But I just found out that my father may be an arse. And you didn't exist. And I think you just found that out, too, so it must have been just as hard for you. Maybe harder._

He wasn't too certain on the details, but Arthur was pretty sure that he passed out after that sitting at his desk, with a tiny sliver of alcohol still in the bottle on the table.

When he woke up again, it was early morning and he was under a blanket and his head was honest-to-god trying to murder him.

He moaned in pain, trying to turn his face away from the sunlight just starting to creep in through his blinds and whimpering as each movement sent a spike of pain through his head. It had been far too long since he had drank like that— must have been since school, since the past several years he had only partaken alcohol in moderate amounts. Never anything that got him pissed out of his head.

A shift in movement that wasn't him prompted him to open one eye blearily, cursing whoever managed to break into his apartment because the bastards had managed to pick the perfect time when Arthur couldn't have kicked their arses. He would just have to glare weakly at them while they stole all his electronics.

The blur of movement came closer to him and put down a glass of water on the table; the quick clink managed to reverberate through his head painfully. The glass fizzled softly, evidence of the medicine he kept in his cabinets in case of hangovers.

He raised his eyes blearily.

Merlin frowned from where he stood, and looked far too calm and awake for that early in the morning.

"It's your own fault for drinking like that," He said, and picked up what little remained of the large bottle of vodka. A bottle that had been full the previous night.

He nudged the glass closer to Arthur's face. "Drink it. You'll feel better soon enough."

Arthur lifted his head slowly and reached with one hand to grab clumsily at the glass, grateful for the cool smoothness under his hand even as he struggled to down it all in one go.

Merlin just watched, expression indecipherable.

"You know," he said conversationally when Arthur dropped his head back down into his arms and waited for the medicine to kick in, "People normally stay away from writing messages when they're drunk for a reason."

"Oh, yeah?" Arthur mumbled into his arms, uncaring if his words were distorted. "Why's that?"

Because that had been the only time he managed to gather enough courage to say sorry.

"Because messages are never written well when drunk," Merlin replied. "And auto-correct makes sure you send something entirely different than what you were trying to send. Unless you really were trying to tell me something about your father's arse, and _harder_."

_That _garnered a response from him, as Arthur jerked at the unwelcome mental image and lifted his head again to glare with reddened eyes at Merlin.

"I did _not _send that!"

"I have the message saved." Merlin said sweetly. "If you ever want to read it."

Arthur just shut his eyes tightly at his own humiliation. "And you're here to make fun of me for that?"

"No. I came because I thought you would want to talk."

"I didn't say that."

Merlin's response was softer. "You wrote 'sorry.' And I know you, Arthur."

The headache was slowly dispersing, enough for him to reply coherently.

"You don't know me." His voice was guttural, on the verge of being rankled. "That's the thing, isn't it? You don't really know me, and I don't know you. Not at all."

He looked up again. "Did you put that memory in there on purpose? So that I would trust you? So that I would let you lead me to Morgana?"

Merlin thinned his lips in consternation. "Do you really think that, Arthur?"

"I don't know what to think." And the statement somehow carried more venom than he thought it would. "I suddenly find out that everything I've known was a lie— that I don't have a sister. That my father isn't just dabbling in politics, he's _conducting experiments on children_. That my mother had something to do with this. That you've... I don't know you at all, do I?"

"You _do _know me." This time, Merlin cradled the near empty vodka bottle in his hands, looking lost. "I don't know how, but I think you might know me better than anyone. God, Arthur, I don't know. How I can swear to you that I didn't know, not until I read that file?

"You want to know about me? We met when I was six, yeah? I moved away, attended school in Ealdor. My life was pretty boring. I remember... uneventful things. Birthday parties, struggling with my studies." He gave a half shrug and sat down across from Arthur, although he kept his eyes on the table. "Uneventful things. I met people. Made friends. Didn't really do anything all that important. Found out I was good at getting information from the Network. _Very_ good. Good enough that people could accuse me of being a techmage even though I don't have the up-links."

And his expression looked so pained. "You were right the first time. I don't have any up-links. Not a single one. I never found that odd, not really, not until you pointed that out. I wondered, you know, I wondered why I didn't find that odd. I guess now I know why."

Arthur stayed quiet, digesting this.

"And then... and then I read that _thing_. I read it, and everything just started making sense. Things I didn't want to make sense of. I had such a boring childhood. But then I remembered another childhood. Maybe another life, because that's what it felt like— just as real, but... not, at the same time. Or maybe even more real than my childhood."

Arthur's hand was tight around the empty glass. He didn't know if he wanted to hear about it. He could still convince him that that it was some elaborate prank, played on him by Morgana because that was the type of person she was. Because it would be just like her to erase her own existence to spite their father. She would have dragged Merlin into this and made friends with Morgause to falsify the records, because only a techmage could do something like that.

Maybe the two files were a coincidence.

Maybe Guinevere was cruel enough to deny her best friend's existence.

But no. Not that. Never that. If anything, he knew _Gwen_, and she wasn't the type of person for pranks. She always smiled and gave it away, and she would never have been as cruel as Morgana because she had always been the one to reign Morgana in—

No. That wasn't true, either.

He didn't want to ask, but he had to know.

"What do you remember?"

Merlin was quiet, staring at the grooves on the table, fingers tapping along the bottle in his hands. For a while, Arthur didn't think the other man would say.

"Not a lot." Merlin admitted. "Flashes, more like. Feeling like I was asleep for most of it. I remember my dad— the dad I had in, in my other childhood I guess, I remember him staring at me. He wore white, and he looked. I don't know. Pained. He said sorry a lot. Only to me, not to anyone else that I could hear. But it's fuzzy.

"I think when I really woke up, or at least, I don't know, woke up like I remembered things more clearly— I think he was already gone. Something had happened, and he died. I think. He died, and I woke up."

Arthur stared at him. He couldn't imagine having two sets of memories. It was bad enough trying to decipher through one set, although perhaps it was easier with two because it would be easier to say one set was fake and one was real.

"There was a kid," Merlin continued, oblivious to Arthur's thoughts. "Named Will. I remember him from school. In Ealdor. He was my best friend, and he moved away after school and I never heard from him again. But in the other memories, he."

Merlin swallowed heavily, looking reluctant to speak now. But he continued. "I think he was an intern. Younger than the other people there, anyway. He didn't know what was going on. He was the one who got me out when I woke up.

"I watched him die, Arthur. I watched him die, and God, I don't know. I want to say that he just moved away. I want to say that, but I can't find him on the Network, and I can find _anything_on the Network. I don't want to search through the deceased. But I can't find what he's doing now, where he's living. And I've looked. You know how fast I can find things, and I've been looking for him for months. Months and months."

He sounded young, and hurt, and more confused than Arthur felt if that was possible. Only it _was_ possible because Arthur hadn't thought of it like that, to have people he knew and loved dead and hoping that they might not be due to an error in his own memories.

"So I didn't know." Merlin concluded, looking reluctant to say any more on the matter. "Not really, even if I did at the same time because I kept searching for Will, and because I told you that you really shouldn't go meet Morgause."

"You really thought that if you said I shouldn't do something, I would stop?"

Merlin huffed out a bitter laugh. "Okay. Point to you, but I held out hope."

"Merlin—"

The memory was _there _all of a sudden, something that had been on the edge of his mind until now, slamming into him like a sledgehammer. Arthur sat up straight, his hangover completely forgotten over the course of the conversation as it slowly dulled to a more socially acceptable level.

"Subject 05— there's someone out to _kill_ you—"

Merlin didn't look panicked enough about it as he shrugged lightly, "Yeah. Mordred. He's, yeah, he's not the type to really wait around. That's what I came here to tell you. I told Gwaine. I told him as much as I could, anyway, not everything because that just puts him in more danger. He thinks that I should take myself off the grid. Lay low for a while and see what happens, because I'm sure that's what Morgause is doing for Morgana.

"You didn't meet her, right? Actually meet Morgana. I don't think Morgause would let you, since you could be a spy from your father or compelled by Mordred or something."

Arthur gave him a careful look. "I met you."

"Doesn't matter. Could be that you're trying to get me and Morgana both at the same time, and you wouldn't even know it. That's how Mordred manages to evade Morgana's Sight, you know," he hesitated. "The... probability program, I guess. To try and predict the future."

"You know an awful lot for someone who didn't remember."

"I get information fast."

Arthur ran a hand through his hair, feeling defeated. "And me? What am I supposed to do? Why even tell me these things? What am I expected to do? I've nothing to do with this, yeah?"

Merlin was giving him a careful look.

"Arthur, you're—" He cut off, frustrated. "You're Morgana's brother. You're _my friend._"

"Yeah? And who's to say you didn't just target me for your weird memory swiping bullshit because my father happens to be Uther Pendragon, huh?" He couldn't seem to stop the raised pitch in his voice, the climbing anger. "Who's to say that this isn't one giant scheme for some kind of revenge by turning me against my father? How am I supposed to trust what you say now, huh? Can you at least tell me that, _Merlin_?"

Merlin's face was pale and pinched in the face of Arthur's acrimony.

"You know," He leaned back, looking for all the world like he was withdrawing into himself. "What you remember about when we were kids... I remember that, too. Just as clearly. Maybe more, since I don't know how clearly you remember that. Don't you think that I believe it happened?"

And the hangover was gone now, gone to leave only the bitter taste of disappointment in Arthur's mouth. "That makes it worse! You're just— you're changing someone else's memories without even trying to. That's more than an invasion of my mind, Merlin, it's something you have no control over so you might do it again and _again_ and how the hell would I know the difference? From what you're saying, how the hell would _you_ know the difference?"

"I can't know the difference. How could I? This is messing with my brain too." Merlin tried to muffle his sigh, and set the bottle down in the table gently. "But you don't have to worry. I just wanted to tell you. Because you should know."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you. I'm going off grid for a while. And you need to go back to your life, especially since you don't want to be involved in this, all of this. I'm sorry. You're right, you shouldn't have been brought into this but you were. I don't know how to fix this, Arthur. But I don't want to make it any worse, so I guess this was me coming to say good-bye."

Arthur tensed up. "You can't just leave."

"What else can I do? You said it yourself— you don't want to be involved."

"I don't, but I _am _involved now!" Arthur snapped. "You can't just walk away and disappear when I find out about all of this."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Merlin's voice was raised as well. "What am I supposed to do? I can't stay because that would make things _worse_. And now you're saying I can't leave, either."

Arthur slammed a fist down on the table, rattling his glass. "I don't know!"

"Well, I can't wait for you to find out if you know. Arthur—" Merlin cut off, looking very much like he had something important to say but couldn't get the words out properly. Arthur stared, ignoring the dull throbbing in his temples as the medicine made its way through his system.

The silence was tense and awkward.

"...Nothing. Never mind." Merlin finally said, and looked away. Arthur could feel a sharp pang of disappointment. Merlin was still keeping information from him. Secrets.

The other man stood up, the chair making a loud screeching noise against the floorboards as he moved, although Merlin didn't seem very affected by the sound.

"I should go. I just—" he turned his eyes downcast. "Goodbye, Arthur."

Arthur didn't move from where he sat, still feeling the edge of grogginess and pain from his hangover, his muscles still aching and his head still somewhat fuzzy and dim.

Merlin stopped at the door for just a moment.

"For what it's worth... I don't think my brain made it up. Us meeting as kids. I'm pretty sure that was real. It's the only thing that feels real to me right now."

And he was gone before Arthur could formulate a reply.

—

It took two days.

Arthur cancelled his appointments and made the appropriate excuses, this time something about a vacation out of they country. He wasn't too sure of it himself. He just wanted to make sure that people wouldn't come looking for him when he needed the time to figure things out. He even left a message for his father, delayed for a week to reassure the man that his son was alright, and to please leave him alone and give him so time to himself.

He didn't quite remember phoning Gwaine up, or of the tense conversation thereafter. There had been name-calling and shouting with a few threats mixed in. By the end of it, Arthur had come out with an address and a demand that he contact Morgause first and to stop _calling_ Gwaine because if they were going to talk, it would be best face to face.

True to form, mere minutes after he had finished packing his essentials, Perceval showed up on his doorstep to collect him and lead him to a new place where Morgause was residing, again out of the way and looking all too shady.

She didn't bother saying much thing time, instead staring hard at him even as he glared back, and handed him a list of instructions.

Don't speak with people. Don't use his up-link. Don't stray too far away.

And most importantly, _wait_.

The list spoke a little of Mordred and what the boy could do, as well as the fact that Morgana would do her best to warn them should she foresee something happening.

When Arthur finally showed up on Merlin's doorstep looking as regal as he ever did, Merlin only looked mildly exasperated.

Arthur counted that as an improvement.

—

The first week on the run and Arthur could scarcely believe that life as a fugitive would be so _boring_. Merlin managed to fake the records of him leaving the country to go somewhere sunny (Arthur never bothered to really look) on vacation. Gwaine visited from time to time, but there had been no communication with Morgause. She stayed silent on all lines, and Arthur could barely contain his urge to check the Network for any sign of her existence. But he didn't.

'Under the radar' apparently meant doing nothing at all, because the consensus was that they were not to leave the safe house unless absolutely necessary, not to access the Network, and not to contact anyone.

It was, all in all, a complete bore.

If nothing else, Arthur had wanted to stay with Morgana. She was his sister (at least in his mind), and had been missing for well over eight months. He wasn't ready to stay with—

With—

_Merlin_.

It was awkward, especially considering the way they had parted before. He felt as if he didn't know the other man all that well (which was the truth, but somehow not true as well because Merlin's presence felt as familiar to him as breathing), but Morgause had insisted that the two of them stay close together unless they wanted to be found out by Uther and then by affiliation, having _Morgana_ found out by Uther.

It all made much more sense when Morgause said it than when Arthur thought about it. Actually, it didn't make any sense at all to him, but with the urgency that had come on with finally finding Morgana, Arthur found that he couldn't argue.

It didn't mean that he had to like it.

"You changed," Merlin had accused him after the first day when Arthur had ordered him to clean up after himself rather than leave the kitchen in a mess.

"Of course I have. I grew up." Had been Arthur's response, because everyone changed, especially after they grew up. Everyone except for Merlin, it felt like. It didn't matter how mature the other man was or how intelligent, he still felt like the same senseless idiot from before. But Arthur was well too aware that no one stayed the same, even if they pretended to.

And Merlin had plenty of reasons to pretend.

They had argued and shouted for the first five days, unused to someone else in their living space and having to compromise. Arthur had raged about how Merlin left a complete _mess _everywhere he went, and Merlin had griped loudly about having to clean up after Arthur so much that he could stand to leave some of his own (minor, he claimed) messes around.

Arthur had thrown things. And then Merlin refused to speak to him rather than shout back, and that was nearly unbearable, especially since they weren't to speak with anyone else. That meant there was _no one_ Arthur could complain to.

It ended with him in the kitchen now, struggling to remember what Merlin had liked on his sandwiches. It had been two decades, and Arthur hadn't been the one to make those sandwiches in the first place so he had a perfectly valid reason to not know.

"You don't have to stay." Merlin had said right before he left the room, not even having the decency to slam the door behind him. It would have made Arthur feel better if he had _slammed the door_, because at least then it would have been anger and that not subtle hurt behind everything he had been saying.

Of course he had to stay, Arthur thought angrily, putting a little too much force into spreading jam on the piece of whole wheat, the soft bread dipping under the force of his knife. Of course he had to stay. Morgana was his _sister_, and it really didn't matter if that was true or not because he believed it to be true, and that was all that mattered to him.

His memories mattered to him, and that included those childhood memories he had sitting with Merlin underneath that thrice damned tree they had cut down. It included the explosive rows he had with Morgana whenever they couldn't see eye to eye (and that happened frequently).

If those were all fake, what did that make him?

He could understand where Merlin was coming from— but no. He couldn't. Not really. Arthur had just found out that some of his truest and most vivid memories were completely _fake_; he had reason to be upset, and reason to lash out.

Admittedly, he thought guiltily, not at Merlin. It wasn't truly Merlin's fault (even if it was), since Merlin's memories were just as fake as his.

This meant they had never met under that tree, after all.

Maybe that tree had never been there.

That thought was somehow... depressing.

He smashed the two pieces of jam covered bread together, not caring to see what kind of jams he had slathered on before he threw it on a plate. Without bothering to wipe the blade, he used the same jam knife to cut the sandwich in half, remembering how they had shared as children.

(Or not. They never met as children, after all.)

He grabbed the plate and stepped toward Merlin's room, making sure that he made enough noise that the other man wouldn't be able to miss him.

He knocked, and waited.

"What do you want?" Came the indignant response, and it sounded as if Merlin was at the other side of the room.

"Look, I've got food." Arthur paused. That didn't sound quite right, but it was all he could really do, seeing as there was no way he was going to apologize because then that might somehow justify Merlin's moping, and he didn't want to do that. "Open up the door, will you?"

He stood there awkwardly, shifting his weight from side to side until he finally decided _screw this_because it was embarrassing trying to make amends, but then there was the soft sound of shuffled footsteps and the door opened just an inch. Just enough to see a sliver of Merlin's face glaring out at him.

The look managed to raise Arthur's hackles again despite telling himself he wouldn't rise to the bait this time. It was just that somehow Merlin managed to get under his skin easier than most people (or maybe more than anymore. Arthur certainly had never been as irritated or frustrated with anyone like this before in his life, and he was stuck _living_with Merlin until Morgause contacted them again because they couldn't give anything away to Mordred and he was starting to wonder if it was all worth it).

Merlin must have caught his expression, because he looked less than impressed.

Arthur caught himself, and swallowed down his pride. "So, can I come in?"

Merlin looked down at the plate and made a face. "I'm allergic to strawberry."

"It's not strawberry jam."

"Yes, it is!"

"I'm the one who made these sandwiches, so no it's not." Not that it mattered he hadn't looked at the labels of the jams he had filched from the fridge. "Besides, who has strawberry jam if they're allergic?"

"This isn't my flat and Gwaine was the one who packed everything—"

"That man _adores_ you, he's not going to put anything potentially dangerous in this place."

Merlin pursed his lips, but didn't deny that statement. It was hard to when Gwaine really had dropped everything on the spot to set up a network of safe houses when Merlin had confessed the need to hide.

"Fine." He opened the door to his room wider to invite Arthur into the pristine bedroom. "But you don't get to complain about the movie choice."

He really did try not to, but Arthur ended up complaining. He stopped complaining, though, when Merlin finally decided that _fine_, the movie was absolute crap, and then starting splicing in new scenes together.

Which, Arthur had almost said before he caught himself just to stare at Merlin's moving hands and almost glowing gold eyes, should have been impossible. But it wasn't, of course, not for Merlin who had undisputed access to everything over the Network.

It took mere minutes for Merlin to dub over the movie with another soundtrack and edit not only scenes, but add fan made videos to create an entirely hilarious outcome that Arthur forgot all about the frightening power of techmages (of _Category-10s_, his mind whispered) and started laughing harder than he had in years.

And Merlin ended up really allergic to the strawberry jam on the sandwiches.

—

Three days, one panic attack, and several shouting matches later, and it felt like the two of them had lived together forever. Enough that Arthur could almost pretend he really had known Merlin all his life, and that little boy who tried to rescue a kitten from a tree had never moved away.

"It's impossible to live up to him," Arthur confessed on one occasion where the two of them had settled in with a beer and a plate of chips, an absolutely ridiculous movie on in the background. Merlin had been quiet, listening to him attentively as Arthur waved a chip around like a scepter. "He— he just has these impossibly standards, you know? And it doesn't matter what I do, or even what's physically possible. Every time I do something good, something amazing, he just looks like he expected it from me all along. And then every time I'm not the best, he just— he looks so _disappointed_."

He slumped. "I hate that look."

Merlin nodded sagely, and not for the first time, Arthur wondered if the both of them were a little drunk. Not enough for slurred speech, but still enough that... well, he was pretty sure that he wouldn't have said anything of the sort aloud if he wasn't drunk.

"You should do what you want." Merlin agreed, and rolled over on the couch even as Arthur blinked up at him from where he sat on the floor. "If you don't want to take over the business— don't! If you don't want to take over the business... uh. What did you want to do again?"

"I want to be a knight." Arthur murmured into his drink. "Ride horses, fight with swords—" He brandished his chip fiercely. "—And save damsels in distress. Princesses."

"High expectations." Merlin commented lightly.

"No higher than my father's." He leaned closer to the couch. "Even my name! I mean, sure, there must be plenty of blokes named 'Arthur', but me, I'm the one who's actually supposed to somehow live up to my namesake. King Arthur, you know? But of business. Because I can't be a knight."

"Better than 'Merlin'."

Arthur patted Merlin's arm consolingly. "But you do live up to that name, don't you? Techmage Merlin. Gods! I think I knew when we first met. How often was I going to meet a Merlin?" He paused to think about it. "Even though for some reason I know a Guinevere. And Lance. And they're _together_. Isn't that funny?"

"Hilarious," The word was slurred into a cushion.

"And we both know Gwaine. Gawaine. I feel like I really should be collecting knights of the round table or something. I want to be a knight. But I can't be a knight. Isn't that funny?"

Merlin lifted his head up enough to stare at Arthur with hooded eyes. He reached out and grabbed at Arthur's wrist tightly. "Maybe you still can. Could. Maybe you were? A knight? Arthur, Arthur, do you really want to be a knight?"

Arthur just shrugged as Merlin finally gave into the urge to bury his face in the pillow. The techmage didn't lift his head again as he drifted off, and Arthur turned his attention back to the movie playing in the background.

He had no idea what they were watching, but he could feel the distinct warmth of Merlin's hand still on his arm.

—

They didn't stay in the same house for long. The first time they had to move, it had been because Arthur had answered a call from Guinevere who shouted at him for endless minutes about how worried she had been when he stopped going to work, even if he left excuses with his secretary about taking an indeterminate amount of time off in order to figure out what the hell to do with this Morgana-doesn't-really-exist problem (put more delicately, of course. There was some excuse about reoccurring illness and then about wanting to travel and not to worry. The paperwork was all there, provided by Merlin).

Arthur's expression had been long-suffering when Merlin walked in with a basket of clean laundry, nodding and making the appropriate placating noises at the correct moments.

_Quick call,_he had mouthed to Merlin at the man's shocked expression.

Merlin had dropped the laundry and knocked the phone to the ground in two strides, making sure to stomp hard on the small electronic.

"What the _fuck_—" Arthur managed to shout before Merlin pulled up an interface, looking grim.

"You don't take quick calls!" And his long fingers were already flying over a keyboard that only he could see, the images reflected in his eyes, lighting them up to a golden colour. "I can keep us off the grid, but only if you don't _lead them to us_!"

Arthur felt his breath catch as Merlin looked up with gold in his eyes. "I bought us some time. Maybe thirty minutes before they can trace the call."

What followed had been frenzied packing as Arthur continued to shout at Merlin (although his heart wasn't into it) about how expensive his phone had been.

They were barely three blocks away before the sounds of sirens assaulted their ears, and Merlin pulled his toque lower over his brows; gave Arthur a pointed look.

Arthur shut up about his calls being traced after that and stopped trying to placate Gwen and Lancelot about his safety.

Some weeks were quiet. Others, they moved frequently with Merlin coming up with new identities on a whim (nothing that would withstand close scrutiny, but would pass muster at first and second glance) and landing some close calls when Arthur realized that while Uther was perfectly content to lose Morgana's existence, he was not content with Arthur running off.

There had been more than one instance when the two of them had crammed into a nook against the side of a building, Merlin's eyes gold as he tried to change documents and records, the scrolling code looking like a reflection in his gaze and Arthur stayed tense and quiet, listening to men ordering a thorough search bare meters away and realizing that if they were found... if anyone managed to find them, Merlin would be killed.

For all the yelling and intentional bullying he directed toward the other man, he knew that he wouldn't let Merlin die.

Merlin _or_ Morgana.

_It's not a game._

No, it wasn't.

And Arthur would press Merlin deeper into the shadows, breathing out carefully against the shell of Merlin's ear.

—

Once, just once, Arthur managed to coax Merlin to speak of his nightmares. It had been one of the better nights, where Merlin woke without screams even though he shook and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, curling up into a ball at the edge of the bed.

"I can't tell what's real anymore." Merlin admitted, his voice barely above a whisper as Arthur laid beside him, back to back for warmth and comfort.

Arthur shifted, itching to roll over and confront the other man, but not daring to in case it made Merlin stop talking.

"Your dreams?"

"Yes." Merlin drew in a long breath. "Arthur?"

"Yeah?"

"What year is it?"

Arthur turned his head, concerned. "You don't know?"

It was a long minute before Merlin finally shook his head, dark strands of hair barely moving on the pillow.

"No, I really don't anymore."

—

Arthur hadn't meant to fall asleep that afternoon, head in his arms over a pile of reports and questions that he wasn't supposed to answer. Questions from his father, questions from Guinevere, questions from every damn person he had known in his life before Merlin had entered it.

It was just as well that he ended up in the cafe down the street, anyway.

"Have you figured it out?"

Arthur turned his attention back to the young man sitting in front of him, away from the busy streets outside. Mordred was young, probably still in his teens with wide blue eyes that could have been deceptively innocent had it not been for how cold they were.

He looked like Morgana. He looked like Merlin. Arthur wondered if all the chosen participants looked related. Merlin had told him about Freya and Nimueh before, and they were supposed to be pale skinned, dark- haired, and bright eyed as well. He wondered if they were designed to be cold and beautiful.

Maybe they _were _related. How they hell would he know.

"You're Mordred." Arthur said, voice as calm as ever even though he knew he shouldn't be calm. His eyes darted around the cafe, glad to know that it was one that had been close to where he lived as a child. Nowhere near where he was now. "And this is a dream."

"Not a dream." It was a voice, yes, but Mordred's mouth didn't twitch. In fact, the boy looked as eerily still as a painting, sitting with his hands by his sides and a steaming cup of tea before him. Those blue eyes were striking; chilling. "The Network. You're very well protected, Arthur Pendragon. I couldn't talk to you until now."

"The Network doesn't look like this." It was strands of information, downloads and uploads, messages sent and received. It was a sort of augmented reality, not the cafe around the corner.

"It does for us."

Everything looked real. Felt real. He could feel the dig of wood under his palm, the cold varnish and the thin napkin by his fingers.

"You mean for the Category-10s."

Mordred's expression shifted into something predatory and interested. It took barely a moment for the boy to deduce where he had gotten the information from. "Morgause."

"I'm dreaming." Arthur reiterated, because he _knew_. He had been warned by Morgause that it would be a method Mordred could use to attack him. As long as he stayed near Merlin, he was protected. It was like a force field, she had explained, that would encompass him. Mordred was not strong enough to attack while he was awake, but when he was asleep... he would have to stay close to either Merlin or Morgana.

"She lied to you, you know." His voice sounded young, even if it was something that reverberated through his skull rather than coming from his mouth. "She's not Morgana's sister. You're not her brother. Morgana and Merlin are _my_siblings."

"You're trying to kill them." He felt far too calm. That was the most telling thing about this dream; he was far too calm. Felt like he had been drugged, like his emotions were shoved to the side so he could process things logically.

"No." Mordred was still. "I want them to come home. They're dying in the outside world."

_Dying._

"They'll die if they go back."

"That's not something anyone can predict. Everyone dies. But they'll last longer at home. Years, maybe an entire lifetime. Out here, they're not going to last a few more weeks. They're already dying. You know this."

Of course he knew. He watched every day; the lagging reactions, thoughts that took longer and longer to process. It weighed on Merlin, like each thought was sent to an overworked processor and left in queue. It was harder and harder to wake him in the mornings, and his dreams became more and more vivid.

Just like Morgana, Morgause had confided to him quietly that time they met.

Mordred waited for him to respond. The world continued on around them, movement beyond the window and shuffling behind the counters. Everything was blurred like an focused camera, like Arthur was concentrating on something else, which he was.

He wondered how long he could delay his response. If he waited long enough, would he wake up without having to give Mordred an answer? Or maybe this world of his dreams lasted forever, a sort of infinite thought loop created by Mordred. Were Category-10s strong enough to create a world on the Network that could last forever? It could be powered by his brain.

And Mordred was infinitely patient.

"They're not going back." It wasn't as if Arthur would give any other answer. "They're never going back to that place."

It must have been the answer that Mordred expected, but that did nothing to quell the hate in the boy's eyes. "You have no right to decide their fates like that, Pendragon."

"No," Arthur responded, slowly, feeling bits of anger come back to him. It felt like a limb slowly waking up, tingling and uncertain. "That's for them to decide. And they decided. I'm just making sure they get what they want."

"They don't know what they want. They're going to _die _like this. Morgause may have painted me out to be enemy, but I'm the one trying to save them."

Arthur took a good look at Mordred. The boy was still, utterly still. Despite the wealth of emotion (and by wealth he meant 'very little') in the boy's eyes, his entire body looked frozen. His lips had never moved through his conversation, not even a twitch.

"No," he answered slowly. "That's not saving them. Do you even know what you're saving them from?"

"Death."

"By sending them to die?" Arthur leaned forward across the table, feeling the steam of the coffee against his skin. _This is a dream._ It didn't matter if everything felt frighteningly realistic. He _knew_it was a dream, and Mordred was doing nothing to deny that fact. He had been warned about this, and no matter how genuine things felt, it wasn't real.

This was Mordred's world; a world so very real but not real at the same time. A world with vivid colours but his emotions pushed behind an wall, muted and barely there. The boy was so very still.

"Mordred, do you even know how to be alive?"

"No." The answer came too easily. "And neither do they."

And Mordred moved, his first movements since the beginning of the dream, leaning forward into Arthur's personal space, undaunted and unflinching.

"Dreams feel like forever, Arthur Pendragon. But they always end. Always."

—

There were bad days for Merlin as well.

Or, Arthur would admit reluctantly, the days got worse and worse for Merlin.

That was when Arthur starting seeing the signs of what it meant to be Category-10. Or, perhaps, that was when his writings started contradicting what he thought was true.

_Went for food run today. Had an argument, didn't talk to anyone._

His words were simple, but his memories complicated. They argued, yes, but on the food run Merlin had been as cheerful as ever, greeting several people he had known. Known, how? They had just gotten to the latest safe-house, and Arthur had been fairly certain that neither of them knew anyone in the area.

His words had implied a day of awkward silence, but that wasn't what Arthur remembered. He remembered another argument after their food run, and this time the argument was about the pettiness of dishes (so _domestic_, he had been disgusted to say) and who had done them the previous day. They had sulked for a good amount of time before Merlin had turned on a movie he knew Arthur liked and Arthur had slowly crept into the room where they both sat and watched it, feeling much better afterward.

He felt like he was missing things.

One morning, Merlin had come from the bedroom and stared wide-eyed at Arthur as if couldn't believe there was someone else in the room with him.

"What?" Arthur had demanded, unnerved.

Merlin swallowed hard, Adam's apple moving up and down.

"How are you here?" Merlin asked, voice haunted. "I just.. I just watched you die."

Those were the days Merlin wandered around the house in a daze, believing it to be several hundred years in the past. Sometimes it was the twentieth century. Sometimes, the fifteenth. Sometimes the twelfth.

He would touch his tablet reverently, awed by the technology in such a simple sheet of machinery. But more, he would stare at Arthur with a haunted look in his eyes, panicking when Arthur disappeared from his sight.

Then there were the days where he appeared perfectly fine, perfectly normal except for tiny things that shouldn't have caught Arthur's attention. Shouldn't, but did.

"Look!" Merlin had called out once when he arrived home, holding up a large and squirming white bundle of fur. "Look! Do you remember her? It's the same kitten! Do you remember? The one that got stuck in the tree?"

The cat (old and scruffy and looking entirely displeased) glared at out Arthur over the introductions.

"Merlin, what did you—?"

"She's proof! She's proof, Arthur, _proof _that we really did meet as kids. It wasn't some fabrication, right? I didn't change your memories!"

The cat yowled, and Arthur couldn't seem to find the words that would say _Merlin, it's been twenty years. Merlin, there's no way you could have found the same cat— we're nowhere near where we met. Merlin, cats don't live that long. Merlin. Merlin, I don't care if we never met as children. I care that I know you right now._

Those were the days Arthur dared to write to Morgana, not knowing if she would get his messages or not, but wanting to think that if she was so powerful, then she would already know he was writing to her and wait for those messages.

_I don't know what to do._ He typed, and then added a message to Morgause. _Hurry._


	3. Chapter 3

The message came through three months after Morgause told him she'd contact him.

_I found it. Come quick._

Just in time as well, seeing as Arthur couldn't stop gritting his teeth listening to Merlin talk about a girl he had met the previous day— a girl he suddenly knew the life story of and had been going out with for the past month.

What was worse, _Arthur_ had suddenly known her as well. He remembered seeing her around the past month, smiling shyly at Merlin while Arthur tried to glare her off. He remembered the morning when she had finally gathered her courage to approach them and hand Merlin a single rose before darting off, face redder than the petals.

If it hadn't been for the fact that he had been advised to write everything down, and he was _certain _in his writing that he had never met this girl before (because he certainly would have written about a bird who had up and out asked Merlin out)...

"We have to go." He said the minute he received the message, grabbing Merlin by the arm the moment the man exited the bathroom, hair still damp and towel tousled from the shower he had taken.

"Go? Go where?"

But Arthur didn't waste any time, not when he had packed just in case weeks ago, knowing that any moment could be too late and that he had to be ready the moment Morgause had found something. Mordred's words hung heavy in his mind at all times, and he couldn't let it come true.

_I've been looking,_ Morgause had said to him the day Perceval had delivered him to her. _I've been looking for something that can disable to flood of information. Stop them from losing their minds._

He didn't dare loosen his grip on Merlin even as he grabbed at the bags, handing one over to Merlin and swinging the other up over his shoulder, exiting the house and not bothering to lock it behind him. There was nothing in the house that could not be replaced, and nothing he would need to go back for. A brief look down the streets confirmed the emptiness at this time of evening, and Arthur spared a thought to wonder just how Merlin and Morgana managed to get around without being recorded by a single one of the cameras stationed all over the city. All over the country; all over the world. But it was a moot point as they _weren't_recorded, and couldn't be traced. Cameras seemed to turn a blind eye to them, to shut down when convenient, and it was awful convenient that Arthur happened to be walking right alongside Merlin.

Eight streets and a ride on the Tube deposited them back in the seedy area close to where Arthur had (first? The second time? Third?) met Merlin. It was an area that, five months ago, he would never have come to. Desperation, however, made short work of his pride.

_We're going to meet Morgana,_ Arthur had whispered to Merlin under his breath while they had navigated the streets, and he could see the thin man straightening, eyes sharpening as if a fog had been lifted from his gaze. _This is important, Merlin. You **must** remember._

_My memories._Merlin had whispered back, a soft exhalation of breath. Arthur hadn't bothered to respond then, only moving to squeeze Merlin's arm in confirmation.

Them. The two of them. They had grown up together, only they hadn't. They were _supposed _to have grown up together. Something had gone wrong, and Merlin had disappeared. Or, something had gone wrong because the two of them had never met in the first place. Was a shared experience real if they both remembered it even if it never happened?

Arthur wondered about that, for the sake of the girl who was probably still waiting for Merlin, still fidgeting nervously about the date she had finally asked him on, despite the fact that the two of them had never really met before. Despite the fact that Arthur didn't know her name, and knew that _Merlin_ didn't yet know her name either.

Morgause was waiting for them at the end of the journey, looking as sleek as she had the first time Arthur had seen her, the same brand of cigarette in her hand and the same dark kohl smudged around her eyes, barely seen from the shadow of the hat pulled low over her forehead and blond curls.

She didn't react much to their presence except to give them a cursory glance and shift to reveal the open door behind her.

"Get in." She said, as low and casual as ever even as she inhaled her cigarette. She looked as if she was part of the shadows, dressed as dark as she was, almost every inch of skin other than her face covered in heavy cloths.

Arthur didn't question more, and tugged Merlin behind him as he stepped through the door and down the steps, leading to a wide, dimly-lit room with the bare minimum of furniture. A frail plastic table with a smattering of rickety chairs.

And sitting at one of the chairs with her hands folded on the table as calm as you please, was Morgana.

Arthur couldn't help his sharp intake of breath. She looked exactly like he remembered her (but of course she would), down to the dark and haunted shadows under her eyes.

"Arthur." She said, her eyes intent on his form even as Merlin bumped into him from behind. "You came."

"Of course I did." He didn't dare to sit down yet, not when things felt so unsettled. Something felt wrong. "Morgause said she found the cure."

The _cure_. Because it was easier to treat it like a disease rather than the idea that the firewall around Merlin and Morgana's brains had been breaking down. Easier to say that than to admit to a deterioration of data, because that made them sound like nothing more than computers.

But Morgause had been with Morgana the entire time.

Morgana didn't look 'cured'.

And the lightning, dim as it was, looked ominous.

There were no other exits for this room.

"Arthur," Morgana repeated, and then spread her palms on the table, looking frail and tired. "There is no cure."

The words were duel-toned and echoed, and Arthur spun in place, shoving Merlin behind him to see Mordred standing there, small and young against the figure of Uther Pendragon.

No. _No_. It was a trap!

"Hello, Arthur." Uther's tone was calm, his face expressionless. Arthur could hear as Merlin let out a noise behind him, surprise and shock and perhaps a hint of fear at the sight of the infamous business tycoon. The very same one who held a hand in all the laws the past decade and sent numberless techmages to their deaths or lifetime imprisonment.

There was no other exit. Mordred had taken up guard of the stairs, face hooded in the shadows just as Morgause's had been. Morgana was sitting at the table. There was nothing in the room that could have been used as a weapon, unless Arthur wanted to wield one of the brittle wooden chairs. No dirt on the floor, no objects that could be used to defend either Merlin or Morgana should things come down to it.

"How—?"

Because Morgause should never have allowed Mordred or Uther down those stairs. Because he had been so certain the woman would have guarded Morgana within an inch of her life. That had been the only reason, the _only _reason, he allowed her near his sister in such a state. Morgause had promised to search for a cure. She had insisted that they had to stay separated in order to make it harder for Mordred to find them.

"Mordred," Morgana spoke up bitterly from where she sat, "Rewrote her memories."

"_They're not rewritten._" And it was a shock to hear Mordred's voice in his head, sounding just as the boy did in the dream Arthur had with him, the very same voice and the very same lack of movements. He was projecting his voice into their minds through the Network. "_I put her memories back to normal._"

The boy's unnaturally bright eyes wandered over to Arthur. "_Now you're the only one left._"

"Only one left _what_?" Arthur demanded, hands closing into fists. No weapons. It didn't mean he would give up, even if he had to fight his father. But it couldn't be that simple. Uther Pendragon was not the type to rely on just one person to defend him, especially someone such as Mordred. There was no doubt that there was an entire squadron waiting for them outside the building, no doubt that back-up was already on its way if it wasn't already here.

"You're the only one left caught in the web, Arthur."

And his father's voice was so placating, so smooth. He sounded like he was discussing whether it would rain or shine the next week.

"Caught in your web." He accused. Caught in Mordred's elaborate plans, with Uther sitting in the shadows waiting for his schemes to come into fruition. "Category-10s. You're the one who created them. You're the one who should be held responsible, not trying to destroy them!"

"I am taking responsibility." Uther was as calm as ever, waving a hand over to Mordred. "You're right. They should never have been created. But can you see the potential, Arthur? Can't you understand why I did this?"

"You could rewrite history." Arthur's voice was shaky. He had been thinking about this for months, after all. How does someone cope with that kind of power? "Everyone's memories. Everyone has an up-link. You could write yourself as king of the world."

He didn't expect Morgana's bitter laugh from behind him.

"Don't be ridiculous." Uther responded, looking disgusted at the suggestion. "I would do no such thing. Memories are not to be tampered with. That is only an unfortunate side effect of it all, one that I will rectify as soon as possible."

And in that moment, Uther looked more like his father again, rather than the monster who had tried to cover up Morgana's disappearance.

"Do you really take me to be that kind of person?"

"_There are laws against invasion of the mind._" Mordred provided. "_Laws that they broke._"

Arthur gaped.

"They— they couldn't help it!"

"Are you sure about that?" Uther nodded to Merlin's barely seen figure behind Arthur. "Absolutely certain?"

Arthur spared a glance over his shoulder at Merlin, the man looking pale and drawn. Looking just like Morgana at this moment, their expressions twin resignation.

"I know it. I've had to watch them slowly losing their minds for five months. You can't tell me that they faked that." He had to watch as Merlin slowly lost his mind. He was sure Morgause had done the same in watching Morgana.

Uther looked far older and more tired at that statement, like he was weighed down with the world and the responsibilities to do everything possible in order to correct it.

"Son," He says, and his voice is grave and serious. "You've been gone for nine days."

What?

He stayed quiet for a long moment before snorting. "Seriously? You didn't notice my absence for that long?"

"Arthur." Merlin's voice was a warning that he couldn't, wouldn't, heed this time.

"That's a bit much, isn't it?" He wouldn't be stopped now. Five months of running and hiding, of carrying this secret, of finding himself slowly coveting all of Merlin's time and attention, leading up to this. "First you won't even acknowledge Morgana as your daughter, and now you don't even notice that I've been gone?"

It was wrong, his mind whispered to him, it was all wrong.

"_Arthur._"

Again, he ignored Merlin's hissed warning.

He finally dared to move, heart beating too fast to stay still even if he wanted to. Taking a step closer to his father and Mordred, he jabbed a finger in their direction, every muscle tense for the upcoming confrontation. For the upcoming truth that he had denied.

"You can't just walk into their lives and—"

"Nine days." Uther cut him off. "Nine days since you cracked the file, and since Morgause filled your head with lies. Four days since Miss Guinevere Smith last called you to check on your health, and was abruptly cut off. Not five months. Nine days."

It was stated so matter-of-fact that Arthur could feel his knees weaken underneath himself. This wasn't the admission he had been waiting for, not the confrontation he had prepared himself for. But somewhere in his head, the facts rang true.

Five months of worrying and watching Merlin fall apart, trying to hold on to his memories, of frantic calls to Gwaine and waiting for Morgause to come up with something (anything) that could save Merlin and Morgana.

Even if he knew that Morgana wasn't really his sister. Even if Merlin hadn't really been a childhood friend.

_Nine days._

"It couldn't have been." Arthur denied.

"_You know about Category-10._" Mordred's eyes focused on Merlin. "_But I told you about Emrys._"

"I admit the projects got more... ambitious." Uther said. "Subject 01 was a mistake. 02... well, she didn't work out so well, did she?"

Morgana growled at him from where she was sitting, and Arthur wondered for a moment if she was somehow shackled to the table. From what he remembered of Morgana, he knew she was the type who was rather fast and furious in her anger.

"Subject 04 was special. We were going to stop with him. He was supposed to be the one who succeeded."

"_If you hadn't run away, Emrys,_" Mordred's tone was bitter. "_I wouldn't have been created. I suppose I should thank you for that._"

By this time, Merlin had managed to retreat toward Morgana, and she reached out to him, grabbing at his hand desperately to seek comfort.

Arthur was frozen in place, waiting for that last weight to drop because Uther always waited until the end to drop the bombshell. Because he _knew _there was something more coming up that he would need to know, especially about Merlin.

"Emrys was our last experiment. It was supposed to be our greatest accomplishment; a dream that scientists throughout the ages coveted but had never been able to achieve. But with our technology, Arthur, we could have done it! We _have_ done it."

"What are you talking about?" Arthur demanded.

"Augmented reality." Morgana spoke from behind him, and Merlin's silence was telling. _He knew._ Of course he did. "And virtual reality for Category-10s. Everyone in the world has it by now. A chip in their head, their up-links feeding information straight into their brains. Uther here," and the name sounded like a sneer, an insult, "was seeking _immortality_."

"There's no such thing as immortality." Merlin finally said, sounding resigned.

"No," Uther agreed, and Arthur wished that he had sat down in one of the chairs close to Morgana. "There is not."

But Uther's attention was turned on Arthur. "But Category-10s were as close as we had ever gotten to it. You have experienced it yourself, Arthur. A change in memories. You life suddenly interesting when once it was dull."

Dull? He couldn't remember his life ever being dull.

"Project Emrys was a step up. To change a person's perspective of time. To let them live... _hundreds_of years, lifetimes, within the span of a human life. Potentially forever."

Five months. It certainly felt like a lifetime.

To experience grief, anxiety, hurt, and _love _all in one. It couldn't have been nine days. It hadn't felt like a sudden whirlwind. It felt like five months. It felt like another life entirely.

"One of our programmers sabotaged us." Uther continued, and Arthur wanted to tell him _stop, enough,_but it wouldn't have made his father stop. "Subject 04 was never supposed to be self-aware."

_Balinor_, Arthur thought, remembering Merlin reminiscing about his parents. About the man, the scientist, who had apologised to him over and over.

"Liar!" Morgana accused, voice loud and wild against the easy tone Uther had spoken with. "You didn't _create_ us! We were— we were _children_! Arthur," Her voice was desperate. "Arthur, don't believe him! We're _real_, we're not some experiments created in a lab— we were children, we had _gifts_, and they changed us! They took our gifts and twisted them and they took away who we were!"

Morgana turned her attentions back to Uther, voice venomous. "You monster. I'm your daughter and you know it, you bastard, and you still did this to me. You can't treat us like this; we're people!"

Again, Arthur wondered why Morgana hadn't taken a chair to physically beat her way out, but a glance at Mordred's eyes told him all he needed to know.

Those eyes were glacial.

Morgana was supposed to have a probability program to predict the future. Merlin twisted a person's perception of time. Mordred... Mordred...

Arthur was still frozen where he stood.

_Oh._

Uther's eyes were just as cold. "I don't have a daughter. You inserted the files. You tried to changed my memories."

Morgana let out a choked laugh. "No. No, you were the one who went and changed your memories. You changed _history_. You created us to deny my existence, because you just can't stand that you have a daughter and _Ygraine wasn't my mother_."

"Silence!"

But Morgana didn't stop. "You wanted to forget that you were a _cheating bastard_!" Her eyes sought out Arthur's, pleading. "We may not have grown up together, but I _am_your sister!"

Those were the words that broke Uther's calm, and he shook with fury. "You were a _mistake_! You were a laboratory _mistake_ and I should never have created you, but you are _not. My. Daughter._."

Arthur didn't know what to think. He knew, _knew _more than anything else that Uther had loved his mother more than anything, because his childhood had been the carnage of his mother's death. He had heard stories, stories of how happy Uther and Ygraine had been together until she fell ill during her pregnancy.

From his memories, he knew that Morgana was older. His older sister. That meant that was before Ygraine had died.

But that couldn't be true.

At the same time, he couldn't get Morgana's words out of his head.

His conflicted expression drew Mordred's attention as the boy turned his icy gaze on him.

"_We're not real. We're not supposed to be sentient. We're not made to survive in the outside world._" In contrast to the rage between Morgana and Uther, Mordred looked perfectly calm. "_We're programs. Interfaces to create a virtual reality for mankind. Organic composites to relate to human brain chemistry, each of us a separate program to prepare the way for the next stage of human evolution._

"_You need to let them go, Arthur Pendragon._"

"They have caused enough damage." Uther snapped.

"If we're not _people_, then why don't you just make something to replace us? Or can't you find more children to experiment on?"

"Because it took nearly two decades to complete your programs. You are an expense I can not condone the loss of." The elder Pendragon seemed to have settled by now, his anger mostly gone. "And now you have nowhere more to run. This escape of yours was short lived."

His attention shifted. "And Emrys. You will come back without a fight."

"_Come home._" Mordred's tone was more emotional than when he had spoken to Arthur, sounding almost pleading. "_This world is nothing but pain and hurts. It's cold and it's hot and tiring. It's terrible._"

"But it's warm." Merlin's voice was small, resigned. "It's beautiful and terrible, and so very alive."

"_We can make that world again. We're supposed to make worlds. You can take what you want from this world and we'll remake it. A world that's beautiful but without pain. One that never decays or rots, but stays eternal._"

Merlin looked pitying. "That would make it terrible."

Uther's attention remained on Arthur. "I am explaining this to you, Arthur, because I think it is time you know. This is what we've been doing the past two decades— creating a world that can last forever. A better world."

"No," Arthur tested the denial on his tongue. "You've been— you've been making advances in the way the Network can be accessed. Bettering the up-links."

No, that wasn't true, and Arthur knew it wasn't true. He had the past five months to try and accept the fact that Uther Pendragon had began a program that twisted a person's brain around to his own use. He knew there was a reason for it because his father always had a reason.

He hadn't expected this to be the reason.

"The Network is a thing of the past. The world moves on, Arthur. You don't know yet what this project can do for people. Once we have the core stabilised, there's nothing that can't be done. People could live... close to forever. In a world of their choosing, where suffering is just a distant memory.

"We're just missing the two core components. We need them back, Arthur. They won't even remember this, won't feel it."

Arthur pursed his lips. Any other time, and he would have considered it carefully. He would have hired people to look through the schematics and then see how much it would cost to buy the patent of it because he was a Pendragon through and through and he understood how much virtual reality would sell. It was a great pitch. If it could work.

But not at the cost of Merlin and Morgana's lives.

"Arthur." Merlin's voice broke through his thoughts, and he turned to the other man. "Arthur, you need to know. I've been searching.

"The tree was real. It was real. It was really there."

His up-link itched, and he felt a buzz in his pocket. His phone. The one Merlin had replaced as an apology to recking his last one, even though Arthur wouldn't get to use it. He would be the only one who could hear the unusual ringing, since it was wired to his up-link so that he wouldn't disturb anyone by answering a call.

_ You remember my ringtone, right?_

"No." Arthur finally said, testing the word. "I don't think you get to choose this for them."

And outside, the world exploded.

—

They ran.

It felt different this time, but not.

His muscles ached at the speed, and at dragging both Morgana and Merlin behind him. He felt betrayed (but by who? Morgause because she had promised to look after Morgana? Morgana for hiding all of this from him? Uther? Mordred for finding them? Or perhaps he was just mad— furious, livid, enraged —at Merlin for not saying anything.

Because Merlin had _known_.

He couldn't get far, not with the two behind him, and at Morgana's desperate gasps for him to _stop; stop, please, I can't run anymore_, and Merlin's breathy intakes of air, Arthur growled and shoved them both into the a nook of an alleyway before following, taking one last look around for pursuers.

No one he could see, but he could hear noises of people shouting.

They couldn't stay for long.

"Stop, stop," Morgana was still huffing even with her hands on her knees and trying to catch her breath. Merlin was only a little better, the other man having stayed mostly indoors for the past five months (no, no, for the past _nine days_ but Arthur was sure that Merlin had never been the type to run around much since he had been a techmage in the first place and apparently brought up in a _laboratory_ in the second) and mostly hacking the Network.

"If you want to get away, we can't stop for long," Arthur warned them (and he was aching as well, but that was mostly his heart).

Merlin was breathing heavily, but he kept blue eyes focused on Arthur.

Arthur paced, listening hard as the shouting slowly caught up with them. He was only able to give them a few seconds before he grabbed Morgana by the shoulder and hauled her up again, ignoring her protests of pain.

"We've got to go, and we've got to go _right now_."

"I _can't_." Morgana protested, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. "Arthur— Arthur, I've _Seen_. You have to take Merlin and get out of here. With me, you won't make it. There's not a single chance of you making it. But just the two of you... you might. Maybe."

Arthur bit down on his tongue. "I'm not leaving you behind; Gwen would kill me in my sleep—"

"Arthur." And she grabbed on to his head, forcing him to look her straight in the eyes. "Guinevere has never met me before in her life. You only think she's my best friend, but she doesn't know who I am. _You know this._"

He did. The knowledge didn't help when the mere idea of leaving her behind weighed too heavy on his mind.

Morgana shoved at him. "Go. _Go._At the very least, get Merlin out of here! They can't complete the program with him, so let me at least have that. Go!"

"I'm not leaving—"

The shouts drew closer and Merlin stared at the two of them, wide-eyed as Morgana shoved once more at Arthur.

"_Go._ Turn left at the next intersection. Take the tube three stops. That's the area least heavily guarded. I don't know if you'll make it, no matter what I tell you there will still be heavy odds against you, but if you go _now _you'll at least survive.

Pay attention, Arthur. If you had just _left_ me here without my saying so, I would hate you forever. But you're not. You're going because I'm tell you to go _right now or we'll all die._"

Arthur didn't waste another moment; he grabbed Merlin by the back of his jacket and pushed him forward before he dashed off himself, refusing to turn around even as one arm hovered continuously over Merlin's person. He wouldn't say goodbye to Morgana because he'd see her after this. Even if Uther managed to get her, Arthur would get her _out_again.

He could hear her behind them, shouting as the men finally caught up to her, cursing and struggling even as Arthur and Merlin left her behind.

"Morgana—" Merlin managed to gasp out, but Arthur ignored him and pressed him to go faster. If Merlin had the breath to talk, then he obviously wasn't running fast enough.

They skidded around the turn, Merlin flailing as he nearly lost his balance into the street, shoving through a group of school kids who looked at them strangely and then started whispering as they heard the people yelling behind them.

Arthur managed to grab a hold of Merlin's jacket again and yanked the other man along with him. He had to leave Morgana behind but he wasn't about to lose Merlin as well. Morgana would take care of herself. She knew exactly what would happen, what to do in order to create the best situation for herself.

His feet practically flew down the stairs at the Tube entrance, and he could feel Merlin stumble against him but now wasn't the time to tease about clumsiness.

Gwaine had already provided the distraction, so the rest would be up to him.

Merlin yanked on his shirt, hard. "Train."

Which direction?

It didn't matter, since he was sprinting for it before the doors closed, yanking Merlin in along with him.

Three stops. Three stops. Right. They just had to wait three stops.

There was no one else in their section, which was surprising seeing as it wasn't very late. Merlin had collapsed into one of the seats, head hanging between his knees as he breathed heavily, while Arthur managed to lean his weight against the wall as he dug the heel of his palms into his eyes and tried to convince his heartbeat that it could slow down now.

Any second now.

"Mordred knew." Merlin's voice was stuttered with quick breaths, sounding miserable. He shifted and twisted in his seat. "He _knew_, all along. The whole thing with Morgana, he knew how to avoid her. He knew how to think around her. How did he know?"

The train stuttered to a stop, and the two of them tensed, watching the platform carefully. There was no one there, but it didn't stop them from holding their breaths until the doors closed again.

One stop down.

"How did he know?" Merlin breathed to himself, never looking up.

"We'll figure it out." Arthur promised. "We'll figure it out when we get out of here, first thing we do."

But Merlin shook his head. "God. I knew it. I'm so sorry, I knew you should never have been involved. I should have turned out away when we met. Should have said no when you tried to coming into hiding with me. Should have—" And he rubbed at his face, grabbing fistfuls of his own hair. "I should have tried harder to keep you away."

_You couldn't have,_ Arthur wanted to say. _That's something that Morgana must have known as well._

"Yeah, well, we can't do anything about that. So let's just work on getting out alive." Alive and undetected by his father or by Mordred.

Arthur sunk to the ground, unheeding of the dirt that would normally have bothered him to no ends. He was never going to be able to go home again, not ever. Not knowing what Uther was trying to do, because even if once he would have applauded his father for the expansion of technology, he could never condone what was done.

Even if he hadn't known Merlin and Morgana personally; he wouldn't have condoned it if he had just heard about Nimueh, about Freya. But now that he actually _did_ know two of the people his father had locked away, Arthur couldn't stand around and do nothing.

He needed a plan to get out. Morgana had specified that while the third stop would be less guarded, it wasn't safe. And Arthur had to get both himself and Merlin out somewhere safe, and then come up with a plan to go back and get Morgana.

It was just another one of those moments where Arthur wished that Merlin had control over his powers. If he could convince a few of the men trying to catch them that he had been a lifelong friend...

But that would be too easy. Surely those men would have some kind of defense against anything Merlin or Morgana could do.

That would possibly why Mordred was able to work around Morgana's powers.

The train slowed again, and once again the two of them tensed up, ready to run or hide at a moment's notice.

Again, there was no one there.

_Suspicious._

The doors closed, and he could hear Merlin let out a breath of relief. Arthur needed time to think this through. A method of getting them out, unnoticed and undetected. If luck held out, the next station would be empty as well, although ground level might be a bit harder. They could hide out for a while, but his father was not the type to give up, and hiding would only give the men more time to surround the area. That meant a quick break; dash into the evening crowds and hopefully blend away, and he would ask Merlin to edit any camera footage that might have caught them later.

Simple.

But there was one thing he had to know first.

"Merlin." Arthur ran a hand through his hair, too tense and he got strands caught on the ring he wore on his finger, although the pain just helped him focus. "Did you know?"

Merlin's voice was strained. "Know what?"

"Five months." Because Arthur was sure, _sure_, that he had spent five months arguing with Merlin over just about everything in existence. "Did you know?"

There was an incriminating silence.

"You knew." Arthur concluded, voice tight. "Did you have control over _that_? Or is that another bullshit thing that I just happened to be caught in because I was standing too close?"

"It wasn't—" Merlin cut himself off, and turned his head away. "I didn't think about it."

"So was that a yes? Because I sure as hell think my life's been screwed over enough."

"What do you want me to say, Arthur? That I knew Mordred would catch up sooner or later? That I was just, I don't know, at least giving myself a little more time?"

"And you don't think you should have told me?"

"Would you believe me?"

"Yes!" Arthur snarled, disproportionately angry. "After all this? After dealing with knowing my memories were being tampered with? What's one more thing? What's, _oh_, my perception of time on top of that!"

Merlin looked back at him, at his anger, with tired eyes. "And what would you have done about it? Would you have condemned me for using it?"

"I would have wanted to know you can stretch nine days into five months!"

"It wasn't nine days."

That shut Arthur up as he tried to quell the wave of betrayal. What was with all these revelations today? How many lies had he been subjected to?

He took a deep breath. "Should I ask?"

Merlin's stare was unnerving and very, very blue. They held each other's gaze for a long moment before Merlin finally turned away, and Arthur noticed something very important.

They should have arrived at the third stop by now.

Whatever it was that Merlin could do, he was doing it _now_.

"...The past day. Just the past day."

"The past day."

He couldn't comprehend it. It was already pushing the bounds of his belief to know that the past five months of memories in his head had been _nine days_, but to know that most of it actually only been one day was beyond that. Mind boggling. (Perhaps literally, Arthur thought a little hysterically.)

Merlin looked miserable, huddled into himself in the seat as if the posture was the only thing that would protect him from Arthur's imminent wrath (a wrath Arthur couldn't bring himself to feel through the haze of shock). He was rubbing his hands down his jeans as if to stave off his nervousness.

"You said—" Merlin gulped, and tried again. "You said that you wanted to a knight. That day. Do you remember?"

He could barely remember fragments of that day, it felt so long ago. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I dream about it. You, as a knight. Maybe that's what I was trying to— I don't know. To create a world where you could be one? But it didn't work. You'd think that if I could change or add memories and then give people exceptionally long lives, I'd be able to do something like that, but I couldn't."

He turned his eyes downcast. "It just... started hurting after a while. I would dream about it, and sometimes I'd wake up thinking that it was real, but you never understood what I was talking about. Trying to show you— I dreamed so many lives.

"I don't know what they are, but they feel _real_ somehow."

Arthur's frustrated showed in his voice. "Of course they felt real to you, idiot, you're the one who comes up with it and thinks it's real."

"No, I mean that—"

The train made the familiar noise of slowing down as it pulled into its next stop, and Merlin looked so surprised that Arthur really should have expected what happened next.

But he didn't, and the slowing momentum didn't help as the train crashed into a sudden halt to throw the two of them forward, the lights flickering out suddenly into pitch black. He heard Merlin's yelp of pain right before he hit the ground painfully, the impact lighter than it should have been due to him already sitting on the ground.

Arthur's response was instinctive.

"Merlin!" He snapped and reached into the darkness to search for the other. He didn't mean to be, but yes, his heart heart had started to race and his palms sweated in a manner that was unlike earlier when they had been running because this darkness was _sudden_ and he knew beyond a doubt that he had missed something, missed something vital, _again_.

Thin fingers grasped onto his arm, the grip tight. The shock of pain brought awareness to the throbbing at the back of his head, and he blinked several times against the sensation despite still not being able to see a thing.

A low flicker of light.

The train car was bathed in a pale blue glow for just a moment before it went dark again, but Arthur could see that the door was open and pulled Merlin closer, trying to hide them in the corner, trying to _see_ through the darkness before charging out blindly, perhaps into danger.

"What—" Merlin tried to say but was shushed as Arthur's grip on him tightened, trying to crush him against his body.

It was too dark.

Merlin stilled, although he did so because Arthur moved his grip to circle Merlin's head, covering his mouth just in case the idiot tried to say something again.

Morgana told them that the third stop would be their best chance of making it out.

_Morgana had just been thwarted by Mordred._

A slow clapping sound echoed in the darkness, and Arthur's unseeing eyes darted straight for the source of noise. It took only a few more seconds before the lights went back on completely, no flickering and no dullness, but now exceptionally bright, as if someone had turned on all the wattage in the city and directed it right at him.

He flinched back, eyes closing tightly against the sudden flood of light.

"_I would say well done,_" Mordred's not-voice rang through his head, "_but that wouldn't be true._"

The flare of pain from the lights dulled, and Arthur turned his head around to see the outlines of at least a dozen men, all of them armed and aimed at him and Merlin.

Mordred was standing in front of those men.

"You knew." Arthur rasped as he figured that last part out. "You know what Morgana would tell us, what she would see."

Mordred's silhouette tilted his head curiously. "_With her active, no one would be able to catch her. No one would be able to catch Emrys. Do you think we're that stupid? I needed a program that would bypass her Sight._"

His curious gaze turned toward Merlin, and Arthur felt a flare of possessiveness, shoving Merlin behind himself even as they both sat on the ground.

"_Emrys._"

There it was, that _something _in Mordred's tone that didn't seem to exist when he spoke to anyone else.

"_Let me take us home._" Mordred all but pleaded, even if his tone sounded as flat as ever. "_Don't try to do that again._"

Arthur had to glance back to stare at Merlin, to ask him what Mordred was talking about, but Merlin's eyes were wide.

"You stopped my code." Merlin accused.

"_Bypassing Lady Morgana's Sight is one thing, but I wouldn't try to bypass you._" Mordred inclined his head. "_I can break codes. Even yours._" His eyes were piercing, the unnaturally bright hue that Arthur was starting to associate with Category-10s.

They were trapped, defenseless, and now their last would-be advantage was gone.

"No." Arthur snarled, finally letting go of Merlin to push himself onto his feet. He ignored the sound of charging weapons as the men shuffled back half a step, raising their munitions. He knew they wouldn't be afraid to use it. He recognized the guns. They would knock anyone and anything out for a full day, damaging the cerebral cortex if used multiple times within a certain time frame; but otherwise, the guns were harmless.

But they would take Merlin away from him forever before he woke again if he got shot with those.

The only chance he had now was the gamble that those men might not dare to shoot Uther Pendragon's son. Or at least, harm him permanently.

Which was why he ran toward them and punched the first man down, and shoved his weight into the next, knocking the gun out of his hands. The train car was small, and space was limited, so a third assailant stumbled before Arthur even needed to regain his balance.

Fighting felt natural, like he had done it many times over despite having never been in true fight before in his life. Arthur had the occasional grapple in school during football games, but never like this.

Shifting his weight, he managed to dig his elbow deep into another man's stomach before he heard Merlin shout his name in warning, his vision jerking up to see Mordred's pleased eyes before he felt a sting in his back and a crippling paralysis.

He collapsed amongst the groaning bodies, eyes still open.

"Arthur!" He could still hear Merlin's shout, his stumbling crawl over, and feel the thin fingers on his face, turning his head so that he could stare into panicked blue eyes.

Merlin was looking away from him, though, up at someone beyond Arthur's vision. Mordred.

"What did you do?" Merlin demanded.

There was a brief silence, as if Mordred was shocked Merlin even had to ask, because Arthur had obviously taken down _four armed men _so of course he had to be sedated.

"_He is unhurt._" Mordred said eventually, and Arthur could see Merlin flinch away at the words. "_But it is over. It's time to come home, Emrys. There is nothing left here now._"

Two of the remaining men, cautious, gripped Merlin tight on the shoulders to draw him away, but Merlin snarled and his eyes flashed golden and the both of them dropped their hand away in shock.

It was almost a sense of victory until Merlin stilled over Arthur's prone body, expression betrayed.

"_There is nothing left here now._" Mordred repeated. "_You can not leave._"

Merlin's wide blue eyes found Arthur's, and Arthur wanted to tell him to just run, _run and leave him_ because he would be alright later, except he couldn't say anything; he couldn't move, couldn't twitch, couldn't convey a single thing.

No! Arthur wanted to scream out. I was supposed to protect you! I was supposed to protect both you and Morgana!

Because Morgana was his sister, and Merlin...

Merlin...

Merlin was _his_.

He had never said it, never hinted at it in the slightest, but he hadn't been able to stand the thought of anyone else close to Merlin. He couldn't stand the girl who had gotten close to them by accident during their time hiding, couldn't stand Mordred's softened tones, and he didn't want anyone to take Merlin away from him.

Merlin had sought _him _out. Merlin had been the one to expand a single day into five months for Arthur, to try and give him memories that he could take with him into a happier context.

That had been the reason why he left Morgana when he never would have otherwise. He had to keep Merlin safe, because he needed Merlin by his side. And he would do anything, even leave behind everything he had ever known to live as a fugitive and recluse, to keep him there.

But he couldn't say it. Not because he didn't want to, but due to the electrical shock that numbed even his up-link.

There was a flicker of something in Merlin's eyes. Something familiar; something understanding.

"A moment." Merlin said. "I just need a moment."

Mordred's disapproval was thick through the air. "_There is nothing—_"

And Merlin leaned down and kissed Arthur.

—

It was like electricity flowing, tingling, down his spine.

A castle. A kingdom. A dragon. A destiny.

(_Is this real?_)

Merlin standing by his side and smiling, laughing, at terrible puns and jokes and at Arthur falling asleep in his dinner.

Growing up with Morgana and listening to her tantrums about his father (_their _father).

Courting Guinevere and the betrayal he felt when Lancelot entered her life.

(_Maybe this was a history that Merlin created. A program._)

More.

_More_.

Lifetimes.

So many of them.

A sword in one hand and a shield in another.

Merlin always, always by his side.

_We'll grow old together, you and I._

Diverging into maybes. Breathy laughs and tumbling over grass.

(_Or maybe, if he let himself believe, these were memories._)

Years, aeons, all of eternity. Time flowing forward and then collapsing back to show Arthur more possibilities, more things that happened (could have happened) and all the lives that he's lived, with so many people flittering in and out. Everyone, really. But always Merlin.

_How long have you trained to be a prat?_

_You can't address me like that!_

_Oh, I'm sorry. How long have you trained to be a prat, **my lord**?_

They created a legend.

Racing down the stairs of Camelot, running through the fields. The scent of rain in the spring air.

The feel of blood in Camlann.

_I'll see you again. I will. I will._

_We'll always know each other._

All dreams come to an end.

_You can't leave me now._

A tree, weathered and old, staggered under the weight of a little boy and cat.

A rather uneventful meeting between children, and a dog that left with its tail between its legs.

One last thought: _It's okay, Arthur. We'll find each other again. We always do._

And then Merlin was gone.

—

_He remembered everything_.

Lifetimes. Again and again.

Arthur woke slowly, groggily, drugged. He could smell the clean antiseptic in the air, feel the cool sheets underneath him.

_Hospital, _his mind provided.

A hand was on his forehead.

"He's waking up." A stranger said, and the hand shifted.

"Do it before he wakes." And that voice was familiar. His father. Uther. "I won't have one of those _programs_ destroy my son's life."

The hand lifted.

"Wipe the memories."

The panic barely registered before he felt the pressure on his up-link and Arthur slept again, submitting to darkness.


End file.
